NU exhibition #2

[Row6Seat10]

The Huskers beat an overmatched Lopers team this afternoon at the Devaney Center 70-46. Yori played the younger players a lot trying to get them as much experience as posibble before throwing them into the mix next Saturday. Jessica Gerhardt led all scorers with 18 pts. Keira Hardy had 12 pts 9 assists and 3 steals. Kelsey Griffin put in 10 and had to sit much of the game as a result of foul trouble. TK LaFleur has really improved since the first exhibition, she played 25 minutes and wound up with 4 steals. Elena Diaz played sparingly after sitting out the first exhibition. Heather Kephart sat out this game evidently her foot is still bothering her. Ashley Ford saw her first action as a Husker but fouled out of the game failing to score.

It's going to be a long season for UNK they're a young team and just aren't very good right now which makes it hard to guage how well the Huskers actually looked. Both teams started out sort of sluggish in the first 10 minutes but then the Huskers took control and didn't look back. UNK couldn't get anything going on the inside all afternoon.

It looked as though Keira had her mind set on getting her teammates more involved by distributing the ball all over the place. Yori said she was impressed with the Huskers' defensive improvement since their first exhibition victory over Nebraska-Omaha. "I was very pleased with our defensive effort today," Yori said. "Obviously it was a focus for us the past two weeks in practice, as I'm sure our players will tell you. We had several practices where we barely touched a ball, but we felt like it was important to emphasize the importance of defense at this stage."

The Huskers lace them up for real next Saturday when Assistant Coach Jina Johansen's (http://www3.sdstate.edu/athletics/varsitysports/womensbasketball/coachingstaff/johansenjina/index.cfm) South Dakota State Jackrabbits visit Lincoln.



Box Score (http://www.huskersnside.com//pdf2/23666.pdf?SPSID=29&SPID=25&DB_OEM_ID=100)

[Skerfan]

I agree with Row6's assessment of the exhibition game. Although UNK has been a force over the years, they were 14-14 in the rebuilding year last year. We did, however, completely shut down UNK's two very best players in Modlin and Fischer. Modlin, who could have played well at the D1 level, had no field goals and Fischer was 1-9 her only field goal coming late in the game.

I was a little disappointed that UNK outrebounded us -- a couple of times in the first half I saw juniors Chelsay Aubry and Jess Gerhart have rebounds knocked away because they didn't secure the ball right away -- both times led to easy UNK buckets. A couple of other times, players who should have crashed the boards didn't because they saw they had a teammate inside.

I think the exhibition season showed a few things: 1) Although we'd be a better team with Jelena Spiric on the floor, there's no need to panic as we have some scoring options in additon to Kiera, 2) Kiera Hardy can play a complete game, including distributing the ball and defense, 3) these kids are really teachable, and 4) we have a much improved inside game (but we'll see how that stacks up against some really solid competition coming up shortly - Angie Janis, Sylvia Fowles, the Paris Twins and Sophia Young to name a few.

It will be fun to watch TK LaFluer play defense on Seimone Augustine when we, :eek:, when we, gulp, take on LSU.