Lady Eagles Start Off Basketball Season with a Win

The 2015-2016 season began with a good showing by our Lady Eagles Basketball team. With 5 sophomores and 6 freshmen, establishing chemistry and working out the early season kinks was the main priority in the game against the Roadrunners of UW-Richland.

The game began in routine fashion with Rachel West knocking down an early 3 pointer in the first possession.  From then on, it was back and forth with the Lady Eagles maintaining a 6 to 8 point lead throughout the first and second quarters. With high ball pressure from guards Nakiah Kimble and Sharon Tomlinson, the UW-Richland backcourt was having quite the time bringing the ball up. This resulted in steals, deflections, and fast break points for Emmaus. The Roadrunners had a fairly hefty height advantage with 3 girls around 5'10" and 2 over 6'0". Early in the first quarter, Shelby Hembera picked up a couple fouls and had to sit the rest of the half. With Hembera on the bench, that gave UW-Richland the advantage in the paint as they looked to feed the post. They also seemed to dominate the boards which made it hard for the Lady Eagles to build on their early lead.  

Due to the Roadrunner's bigs advantage in the post and Hembera out, Coach Graw decided to go into a 2-3 zone and pack in the paint. "Our guards were getting exhausted early with the heavy amount of ball pressure and their bigs were killing us in the post. We were also getting into early foul trouble and I wanted to see if they could shoot outside, so we decided to drop back into the 2-3 zone," Coach Graw said. This strategy proved to work early as the eagles took an 11-point lead going into half-time.

The third quarter began where the second left off as the Lady Eagles came out in the 2-3 zone once again. However, the Roadrunners began to knock down shots and began to cut into the deficit. While UW-Richland began to make shots, with Hembera back in the game, Coach Graw and assistant Coach Biel decided to go back into a man-to-man defense in order to shut down their shooters. It worked, and so did Hembera's defense in the post. By the end of the third quarter, the Lady Eagles began to pull away and finish it with a 76-55 win. Emmaus was led by Madison Laib with 30 points and Nakiah Kimble with 12 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals, and Rachel West added 16 points.

Our Lady Eagles are set to play Trinity International (NAIA) this Friday in Deerfield, Illinois for the La Quinta Classic hosted by Trinity.