Broncos, Leo Leap Over Lions

By Henry Gula

The Broncos improved to 10-6 on the season, and 2-1 through the first three games of West Coast Conference play.

"Conference opponents are always a battle," said fifth-year Head Coach Jennifer Mountain. "Everyone scouts and knows all of your tendencies. The fact that we gritted that one out showed poise."  

"In the past, we wouldn't have been as confident in those tight games," said guard Meagan Fulps. "This year, our confidence is high and we know we will win tight games."

Mountain mentioned that the Broncos have been unable to start games off the way they've wanted to.

"I thought we started slow," said Mountain. "Our play in the second half took over the game though. Our defensive energy set the tone, and then we settled down offensively."

Fulps, who felt similarly about the game, said, "We didn't really play a solid game offensively. We did okay, but our execution has been getting better. Defensively we locked down and had great aggression in getting after their two main players."

The Broncos were led on offense by Leo, who made eight field goals on 15 shots and totaled 21 total points and eight rebounds.

"Four of our starters are near double digits in points per game," said Fulps. "It's tough to defend us because (our opponents) don't know who's going to have a night and that night Lindsay went off."

Center Ruta Zurauskyte led the Broncos in rebounds with 10 and said that her positioning made it easy to grab rebounds when LMU missed a shot.

Mountain, Fulps and Zurauskyte all agreed that the Broncos' ability to shut down LMU's best players, forward Alex Cowling and guard Hazel Ramirez, was the key to the win. Crowling and Ramirez shot a combined 9 for 30 from the floor and 1 for 6 on 3-pointers.

 "We've been starting slow, and it was a reality check at halftime," Mountain said. "Kind of like 'hey, we need to pick it up.' I was pleased with our response in the second half."

Mountain attributed the maturity of the seniors and upperclassmen to the Broncos' success in close games.

"In the past, we would lose close games. Now we are winning them," said Mountain. "That gives us confidence going into the second half. We thought we were better than (LMU), so that confidence really helped."

The Lions were able to make the game close at the end, but the Broncos made big free throws. As Zurauskyte said, "A win is a win."

Moving forward, the Broncos hope to work on offense above all.

"We need to improve our execution offensively," said Fulps. "Slowing down, seeing our options, and not making stupid turnovers are things we've been working on in practice and hopefully we can bring them over into the game."

"I think we're in a great position. We definitely have winnable games. This conference is awesome because anybody can beat anybody but I think we can definitely put ourselves in a great position considering three of the four games are at home," she continued.

Mountain stressed a quicker start and rebounding from the opening buzzer as keys to moving forward.

"If we play defense like we have been I think we'll be in good shape," she said.

The Broncos will play today at Pepperdine University.

"We're definitely confident and we want to finish at the top of the conference, we're off to a great start and keep rolling," said Zurauskyte. "As our coach said, we haven't beat (Pepperdine) in quite a few years, so we really have a chip on our shoulder. We're ready to beat them." 

Contact Henry Gula at hgula@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.