Fort Lewis College’s young women’s basketball team will be thrown to the Wolves early.
The No. 12 Colorado State University-Pueblo ThunderWolves women’s basketball team will enter Whalen Gymnasium at 5:30 p.m. Friday as the top team in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. That presents a big challenge to a young but highly talented Skyhawks team that has already exceeded preseason expectations with a 4-0 start.
“Let’s start it off with a bang,” FLC head coach Jason Flores said. “Pueblo is the best team in the conference with a ton of experience. A lot of their players made the run to win the RMAC Tournament last year. It’s going to be a handful for us.”
CSU-Pueblo (6-0) returned its two leading scorers from last year’s team that beat eight-seed FLC in the conference tournament championship game. Tuileisy Anderson is averaging an RMAC best 20 points per game, while sophomore center Molly Rohrer has averaged the RMAC’s second best 15.7 points to go along with 7.3 rebounds per contest.
“Anderson and Rohrer, you’re not gonna shut those girls down,” Flores said. “They’re too gifted. The problem is they have multiple scorers behind them. We’re gonna have to do a good job trying to make them a bit more uncomfortable in how they like to score and not have them have a huge night. It’s about how tough we can be.”
FLC has been led offensively by sophomore forward Alyssa Yocky’s 13.3 points per game. Briana Clah has made her presence felt quickly with 11.5 points per game, as has redshirt freshman Kayla Herrera with 10.5 points per contest.
But FLC has had a few setbacks in recent weeks with the loss of freshman guard Jordyn Lewis to a season-ending knee injury as well as the loss of Jordan Carter, a 6-foot-2 forward who will miss a few weeks with an injury of her own.
“That makes us thinner at the post,” Flores said of the loss of Carter. “Lewis going out takes away a perimeter shooter and someone we were relying on for good minutes.”
That puts an emphasis on Yocky, Ande Lampert and Natalie Stilwell to avoid foul trouble Friday night against a ThunderWolves team with a top-notch inside-out game.
“We’re still growing, so it’s hard,” Flores said. “It will be a lot of experience against a lot of inexperience. One thing I know is we’re gonna come to compete.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
If you go
Who:
No. 12 CSU-Pueblo at Fort Lewis
What:
RMAC women’s basketball
When:
5:30 p.m. Friday
Where:
Whalen Gymnasium, FLC campus
Listen Live:
KIUP 930 AM, 97.3, 106.3 FM
Twitter:
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