Article Date
December 2, 2005
OBU never trailed the No. 4 Union Bulldogs Friday night at the Noble Complex as the Lady Bison cruised to an 80-65 win. Junior Tamara Whitley put OBU up 2-0 and never looked back.
"It was a collective team effort tonight," head coach John McCullough. "That's the fun part to see a game like that against a good team that you haven't beaten in a while. We were a good team tonight and we're getting better."
Rachel Heins came off the bench to lead all scorers with 19 points.
Three other Lady Bison scored in double figures including Keely Tolin who scored a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Tolin missed having a triple-double by four boards as she grabbed six rebounds on the night.
Tabetha Eaton and Whitley were the other two Lady Bison to score in double figures with Eaton scoring 15 and Whitley dropping in 12 points on the night.
Dilenny Castillo just missed a double-double by a basket as she scored eight points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
With the win OBU moved to 7-0 on the year and broke a three-game losing streak to the defending national champions. The Lady Bison gave Union their first loss of the year dropping them to 8-1 on the year.
OBU held the Bulldogs to just 37.9 percent shooting from the floor while the Lady Bison hit 25-of-58 from the floor including 6-of-11 from three-point range.
We haven't been shooting well from three-point range and I know we're a good three-point shooting team," said McCullough. "I think five or six threes is something we should expect."
OBU frustrated Union's post players with double-teams and kept the Bulldog's perimeter attack in check.
The 6-4 Josephine Owino and 6-2 Natanya Smith were held to just 17 combined points.
"I was worried about us inside," said McCullough. "They (Lady Bison) were so focused on what weve been doing in practice. It just paid off to change up the defense to play them from behind and we fronted the posts as well. We did a good job with help-side defense as well."
The closest the Bulldog came was within one at 18-17 after they went on a 7-0 run, but the Lady Bison answered with an 11-0 run to take a 30-17 lead with 5:08 left in the half.
"Our quickness really made a difference tonight, said McCullough. "We closed out and rotated really well."
Union got the score back to single digits in the second half, but never got closer than six in the half.
Jessica Graves pulled the Bulldogs within six at 68-62, but OBU went on a 12-3 run to end the game.
OBU next plays Manhattan Christian College today at 2 p.m. in the Noble Complex.