The AU women’s basketball team remained undefeated in conference play after defeating Lafayette College, 80-54, Jan. 28 at Bender Arena.
The Eagles (15-6, 7-0 PL) sit alone atop the Patriot League halfway through the conference schedule and continued their strong play at home by winning their fifth-straight game at Bender Arena.
“I feel very confident in our team,” AU Head Coach Matt Corkery said. “When we take the floor, I think we really feel good about our preparation and our chance to do good things against whoever we might matchup against.”
AU’s effort on the defensive end carried the team to victory against the sixth-place Leopards (8-14, 2-5 PL). The Eagles forced 32 turnovers and recorded a season-high 19 steals on the afternoon.
Lisa Strack led the Eagles, tallying a career-high six steals to accompany a season-high seven assists and a game-high 18 points.
“As a coach, that’s a dream to have a player like Lisa with her talent and ability,” Corkery said. “It’s never about her; it’s always about the team.”
Alexis Dobbs was another standout for the Eagles, as the sophomore guard recorded 16 points, four assists and four steals.
“We definitely wanted to play an up-tempo game,” Dobbs said. “Throughout the season, that’s been our game plan. When we play defense how we’re taught and how we practice, it really, really speeds up the game, and it gets us easy deflections and steals for easy layups.”
AU’s ability to take care of the ball and make excellent passes also helped out the Eagles, who totalled a season-high 22 assists while only committing five turnovers in their highest scoring contest of the season.
“That’s my favorite statistic in basketball, is assists,” Strack said. “So much energy comes from feeding your team or getting a great pass. Today was a great example of how exciting a game can be if you know where your teammates are and you’re looking for them.”
The Eagles outplayed Lafayette for all 40 minutes and held a 41-24 lead at the half. AU’s largest lead of the game was 32 points, at 74-42 with 5:19 remaining and at 76-44 a minute later.
Tori Halvorsen and Sarah Kiely played key roles in AU’s victory as well. Halvorsen notched 12 points on 6-8 shooting from the floor, while Kiely chipped in 13 points in 21 minutes of action
“I thought Sarah and Tori were really, really good today,” Corkery said. “[Tori] was able to create space and use the whole lane to get off shots against defenders who had a lot of length. Sarah is really good at spotting up, and she got a lot of really clean perimeter looks.”
The Eagles will take on Colgate University Feb. 4 at Bender Arena in their next contest of the season. AU defeated the Raiders 56-43 in the opening conference game of the year for both teams Jan. 7.
