Slow start dooms Lady Blazers at No. 5 Wabash Valley

MT. CARMEL, Ill. – The Vincennes University Lady Trailblazers struggled early in a road matchup with the highly-ranked Lady Warriors of Wabash Valley as the Warriors held a 28 point lead after the first quarter.

Vincennes was able to fix a few things throughout the game but were unable to overcome the deficit as No. 5 Wabash Valley came away with the 83-40 win.

Right from the tip, Wabash Valley had their foot on the gas Wednesday night. The Lady Warriors quickly scored on two layups in the first 30 seconds of action, forcing a VU timeout.

Vincennes would hit a couple of shots before the Lady Warriors used a 19-0 scoring run to jump out to a 30-5 lead.

Vincennes would hit a free throw but trailed at the end of the first period 34-6 to Wabash Valley.

The VU defense picked up in the second quarter, but the Lady Blazers were only able to play the Warriors to an 11-11 draw in the second quarter, heading into the halftime break trailing 45-17.

Vincennes continued to pick up the pressure on the defensive end, only allowing the Lady Warriors to score 15 points in the third quarter, but Wabash Valley continued to grow their lead to 60-29 heading into the fourth.

The Lady Trailblazers looked to try to battle their way back into the game, but the Lady Warriors closed out on an 11-3 scoring run to take the 83-40 win over the Blazers.

"To begin the game, I thought we played really terribly handling the basketball and passing to the open player," VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Harry Meeks said. "We had worked on that and we knew exactly what they were going to do. Wabash Valley was a lot more aggressive than what I think the girls thought they would be. We tried to tell them that you need to be ready to play against them. They are going to try to smack you right in the mouth and that's what they did."

"The rest of the first quarter, Wabash Valley just handled us," Meeks added. "We didn't give them much resistance at that point."

Sophomore Laila Grant (Derwood, Md.) was the only Vincennes scorer to reach double figures, ending with 12 points on the night with a pair of threes.

Freshman Chanice Willis (Champaign, Ill.) came off the bench to add seven points, while also dishing out a pair of assists.

Freshman DayLynn Thornton (Lafayette, Ind.) led the Lady Trailblazers with three assists on the night, to go along with her three rebounds and five points.

Sophomore Macy Michels (Teutopolis, Ill.) led Vincennes on the board, ending with eight rebounds.

Sophomore Anete Bluma (Saldus, Latvia) entered the game in the fourth quarter and add some pressure around the basket defensively on her way to a team-high three blocks on the night.

"Chanice does a good job of running the floor," Meeks said. "She did a credible job of playing out there and making good passes. I don't think she had many turnovers. She did a lot of the ball handling for us throughout the game."

"Laila was a little bit off her game in the first half," Meeks added. "She had a hard time and we all had a hard time getting shots. I had a hard time keeping them in the offense. When we ran our offense, we did a pretty good job. Then we come down the next possession and someone would be sitting there dribbling in the middle of the floor and let them get their defense set up and making it very difficult on us to play."

"We just didn't play with enough energy. I thought we would have enough energy but we didn't and I think that really hurt us and helped them. I don't know what the rebounding numbers were, but I think they probably got double what we got and offensive rebounding is what Wabash Valley does. So that really hurt us. The team that wins the rebounding battle, usually wins the game and we did not do our job on the boards tonight."

Vincennes will look to bounce back as they close out the 2021-22 regular season at home with their next two games. First on Saturday, Feb. 19 when VU hosts Olney Central College at 5 p.m. eastern.

The Lady Trailblazers will then turn around and host the Lady Warriors of Rend Lake College Tuesday, Feb. 22 at the P.E. Complex. Tip-off time for that game is scheduled for 7 p.m. eastern.

"I think our team looked at Wabash Valley tonight and they saw a really good team and saw the fruits of their labor of playing hard all of the time," Meeks said. "Every player they put out on the floor played hard all the time. The contested everything, every shot, every rebound. They picked up their man at half court on defense and we didn't look like we wanted to compete at that level at this particular time."

"If we are going to do anything in the postseason, we really need to pick it up in the next week and a half," Meeks added. "We've got a couple of days before we play again, so we've got to work it out in practice these next few days and start again."

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (40): DayLynn Thornton 1-5 3-6 5, Cherrelle Newsom 1-8 0-0 3, Elena Aznar 1-5 0-0 2, Macy Michels 0-3 0-0 0, Laila Grant 3-10 4-6 12, Trinitee Harris 1-4 1-2 3, Chanice Willis 3-4 1-2 7, Nina Blade 0-0 2-2 2, Candela Lascorz 1-1 0-0 2, Kylee Shelton 2-9 0-2 4, Cristina Requejo 0-0 0-0 0, Anete Bluma 0-2 0-0 0, Team 13-51 11-20 40.

VU (17-8, 10-3) – 6  11  12  11 – 40

Wabash Valley – 34  11  15  23  - 83

Three-point goals: VU 3 (Grant 2, Newsom). Rebounds: VU 36 (Michels 8). Assists: VU 8 (Thornton 3). Steals: VU 5 (Newsom, Aznar, Harris, Willis, Bluma). Blocked shots: VU 6 (Bluma 3). Turnovers: VU 28. Personal Fouls: VU 15. Fouled out: None.