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Liberty Cruises Past Longwood With Record-Setting Shooting Performancehttp://libertyflames.com/index.cfm?PID= ... 6&TeamID=7
January 5, 2007
Lynchburg, Va.
Courtney Watkins dished out five of Liberty's 25 assists
The Liberty Lady Flames shot 58.6 percent (34-of-58 ) from the field Friday evening during an 82-48 win over in-state rival Longwood at the Vines Center. The field goal percentage was Liberty’s highest ever at the Vines Center.
All 14 Lady Flames scored and Liberty tied a season high with 25 assists while recording its second-straight win. The Lady Flames wrap up the non-conference portion of their schedule with an 8-7 record.
Longwood, the fifth opponent Liberty has held under the 50-point plateau, falls to 5-12 after its third-consecutive loss and its ninth setback in the last 10 outings.
Moriah Frazee won the opening tip for the Lady Flames and sister Megan Frazee canned a lay-up just four seconds in. The bucket put Frazee over the 500-point mark for her career.
Longwood then took the lead right back, 3-2, on a Courtney Dyer three-pointer at the 18:57 mark.
Liberty crafted a 10-2 run over the next 3:35 of play, including a pair of Moriah Frazee hoops. Courtney Watkins’ perimeter jumper with 15:22 remaining gave the Lady Flames a 12-5 advantage.
After a field goal by the Lancers’ Anna Steg, the Lady Flames reeled off a 7-0 surge. Rebecca Lightfoot, the seventh different Liberty player to score during the game’s opening minutes, nailed a three-pointer with 13:58 showing on the clock, making the score, 19-7.
Longwood’s Abigail Freese tallied five of the contest’s next six points, cutting the deficit to 20-12 at the 10:26 mark on a Freese jumper from inside the paint.
Karolina Piotrkiewicz, seeing her first extended playing time for the Lady Flames since an injury sidelined her for six games, recorded two points, three rebounds and an assist during her team’s ensuing 11-0 run. Michelle Parker capped the surge with a lay-up at 4:54, increasing the Liberty lead to 31-12.
A Keiva Small jumper 2:09 prior to the intermission trimmed the gap to 15 points, 35-20, but two Parker foul shots at the 20-second mark gave the Lady Flames a 37-20 halftime lead.
The Lady Flames scorched the nets during the opening half, sinking 58.3 percent (14-of-24) of their field goals, marking their highest field goal percentage for a half this season (until Liberty shot 58.8 percent during the closing stanza.) All 14 Liberty players saw action and 10 of them scored, including seven points apiece from Parker and Megan Frazee.
Meanwhile, Freese tossed in eight points before halftime, but the Lancers connected on just 28.6 percent (8-of-28 ) first-half field goal attempts.
The Lady Flame advantage built to 21 points, 43-22, after back-to-back connections by Moriah Frazee and Jamie Feagin, the latter of which came with 17:01 remaining in the game.
Longwood narrowed the gap to 43-26 on a three-point play by Steg four minutes into the second half.
Liberty then broke the game open with a quick, 7-0 burst. Megan Frazee’s three-pointer at the 13:51 mark finished the run and built the Lady Flame advantage to 50-26.
Molly Frazee tossed in seven-consecutive Liberty markers at one point during the second half, allowing her to eclipse her previous career high of 11 points in a game. Her three-point play at 9:40 kick-started a 9-1 Liberty surge.
The Lady Flame lead stood at 30 points for the first time, 65-35, after Allyson Fasnacht canned a lay-up to cap the run, with 7:19 to play.
Liberty’s advantage hovered around 30 points for the remainder of the contest before scoring the game’s final five markers. Piotrkiewicz’s put-back with just eight seconds showing on the game clock made the final score 82-48.
Molly Frazee paced all scorers with her career-best 14 points, sinking five-of-six field goals. Megan Frazee was the only other Liberty player to reach double figures. She totaled 12 markers and has now scored in double figures in 14 of the Lady Flames’ 15 contests this season.
Liberty outrebounded the Lancers, 35-25, sparked by five Piotrkiewicz caroms. Parker, who posted nine assists during the Lady Flames’ victory over American on Tuesday, notched seven helpers in this contest.
Three players combined to score all but 12 of Longwood’s tallies. Small led the way with 13 points. Dyer and Freese each connected on a trio of three-pointers. Dyer ended up with 12 points and Freese totaled 11.
Friday’s game marked the 100th game Carey Green has coached at the Vines Center. The Lady Flames are now an impressive 89-11 at home under his direction. Liberty has won five of its six home games this season.
Longwood will play the second of three-consecutive tilts versus Big South Conference foes Tuesday evening, traveling to High Point for a 7 p.m. tip-off.
The Lady Flames now have a week off before opening Big South Conference play with a trio of road contests. The first of those games will be played at Coastal Carolina’s Kimbel Arena on Jan. 13 at 2 p.m.
LU Women: As the Flames assist total grows, the wins start cominghttp://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... th=!sports
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
January 6, 2007
Here's how easy the assists came for Liberty on Friday. Courtney Watkins slipped to the Vines Center floor trying to move past a defender but maintained possession, barely keeping her dribble. In a flash, she saw Rebecca Lightfoot open and threaded a pass to the forward past two Longwood defenders. Lightfoot streaked to the basket and scored, marking one of 25 assists in the Flames' 82-48 rout of their regional rival.
"I just saw her out of the corner of my eye," said Watkins, who had five assists. "I don't know how it happened. It's just one of those things."
Share the ball, score points. Score points, win games.
Simple, right?
During a four-game losing streak to end December, that basic concept was lost on Liberty. In those four games, the Flames had 31 assists and failed to break the 10-assist mark as a team in three games. Thus, Liberty's point production plummeted and the losses piled up.
In its last two victories, Liberty (8-7) has rediscovered the fundamental concept of clean ball movement.
"We're seeing that ball movement is giving us easier shots and we're scoring more points," Liberty coach Carey Green said. "There were times in this game where we were struggling and turning the ball over, and it was because we were running power plays instead of a fluid, rhythm, continuity offense out there."
The victory was Liberty's third 25-assist game; the Flames reached the mark in blowout wins over Norfolk State and Columbia Union in November.
Liberty shot a season-high 58.6 percent from the floor and scored 42 points in the paint, a number that irritated first-year Lancers coach Pamela Bass.
"We were switching screens because we wanted to contain their penetration," Bass said. "I really felt a lot of their scoring comes off a penetration where the defense has to rotate. We didn't want to let them penetrate, and wanted to keep the ball out of the lane. Sure enough, they were able to score 42 points on us inside."
All 14 Liberty players scored, led by Molly Frazee's career-high 14 points. Megan Frazee added 12. Michelle Parker had seven assists, giving her 16 in her last two games combined.
Watkins, who was expected to be one of Liberty's top shooters this season, missed her only 3-pointer, putting her at 6 of 27 for the season. Though she continues to struggle through the shooting slump, she showed she can help in other ways, most notably with slick passing and sticky defense. She had two steals and no turnovers.
"Even in the Virginia game, and I know that's been a while ago (Nov. 20), she was a really key passer," Molly Frazee said. "She got a lot of key assists down to Megan (who scored 37 points that night) on the block."
Liberty lit up the Lancers (5-12) from the outside too, hitting 6 of 9 3-pointers. The game was reasonably close in the first 10 minutes until Liberty used a turn a 9-0 run to take a 31-12 lead. The rout was on from there.
Keiva Small led Longwood with 13 points and Courtney Dyer scored 12 off the bench. Despite the defeat, Longwood's ninth in its last 10 games, Bass said her team continues to progress.
"Courtney Dyer is a great example of someone who is figuring out the system and figuring out what we're doing as a program," Bass said. "We're definitely getting there. Are we there yet? No, by no means. But we are on the right path. This was the year to lay down a foundation. We're learning by trial and error on some things. But we are progressing."
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
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