Box Score TACOMA, Wash.—After struggling on the boards last weekend, the Puget Sound women's basketball squad saw rebounding practice pay off Wednesday night, out-rebounding cross-town rival Pacific Lutheran by 10 to spur on a 70-51 victory at Memorial Fieldhouse in Tacoma, Wash.
The Loggers out-rebounded their rivals from Parkland 44-34 en route to the win, their 10th consecutive victory over the Lutes. They also dominated the offensive glass, grabbing 18 rebounds while on offense as opposed to just nine for Pacific Lutheran. They scored 17 second chance points off those offense rebounds compared to just two for the visiting Lutes.
PLU actually scored the first eight points of the game, taking an 8-0 lead in 3:32. Puget Sound evened it up over the next 3:20, though, after Emily Sheldon and Alexis Noren combined for nine of the Loggers' first 11 points.
With the score deadlocked at 11, the Loggers took over the game. Amanda Forshay drained a three-pointer at the 12:30 mark and game the Loggers a lead they would not concede. After Forshay's three-ball, the Loggers added four free-throw shots for a seven-point advantage with 8:54 left. The free-throws capped off an 18-3 run for the Loggers that gave them control of the cross-town matchup.
The Loggers embarked on another run starting at the 6:37 mark, a 10-2 stretch to take their first double-digit lead of the night. They hit that mark after Erin Stumbaugh nailed a jumper with 3:36 remaining. Allie Wyszynski completed the run half a minute later, draining a free throw to put the Loggers up 32-20 with 3:06 left in the period. They held on to that lead for the rest of the half, going into the locker room with an 11-point advantage at 37-26.
Coming out of the break, the hosts opened the second half with a 9-3 run, taking a 17-point advantage after eight minutes gone in the half. Then, they saw their first 20-point lead with 9:13 left in the half after a layup by Forshay.
The Lutes pulled within 17 a couple times after that, but they did not make much more of a dent into the Logger lead. With 3:15 left to go in the contest, the Loggers saw their largest lead of the night—a 25 point margin—after Wyszynski netted a layup to put the score at 69-44. The Loggers scored just one more point after that, a Katie Holland free throw, but it was more than enough as the Loggers cruised to a 70-51 victory.
"Rebounding was a point of emphasis this week and it was our primary focus tonight," said head coach Loree Payne. "We knew that PLU had a tremendous rebounder in [Samantha] Potter and we needed to crash the boards and we needed to keep her from getting offensive boards. Our goal was to out-rebound them by 10 and we did, and our goal was to get more than 10 offensive rebounds and we did. I appreciate how the team responded and really took that challenge to heart."
Stumbaugh led the Loggers with 15 points, a season high. She also added five rebounds and four steals to the Loggers' cause, with the steals matching a season-high for any Logger individual. Sheldon and Forshay also hit double-digits in points, scoring 13 and 11, respectively. Katy Ainslie had a solid night as well, grabbing 12 rebounds and scoring nine points, just one away from her first double-double of the year. The rebounds, however, also set a personal season high. For the Lutes, Potter did manage a double-double, scoring 19 points and grabbing 13 boards in the loss.
Puget Sound (9-5, 2-3 NWC) has a day off before its next contest, a Friday, Jan. 17 showdown with Willamette. That game with the Bearcats will tip off at 6:00 p.m. at Memorial Fieldhouse.
