After back-to-back wins, the women’s basketball team looks to keep rolling with its strong defensive scheme.
The Warriors will look to make it three in a row tomorrow when they host the Compton City College Tartars at 5:30 p.m.
“I think it’s going to be a very closely contested contest,” coach Steve Shaw said.
“It will be another opportunity to play against a team that plays good pressure, man-to-man defense,” he said.
Then the Warriors will play at the Pasadena City Tournament from Dec. 9-11.
The team will have a week off before resuming play at the Orange Coast Tournament from Dec. 17-19.
There will be no games, due to winter break, between Dec. 19 through January 4.
The season wll resume with the start of the South Conference games on Jan.5 as the Warriors travel to Pasadena City College at 5:30 p.m.
On Jan. 7, they travel to East L.A., game time will be at 5:30 p.m.
Last Tuesday, Nov. 23, the women defeated the L.A. City College Cubs, 57-52.
With the victory, the Warriors moved one game above the .500 mark with an overall record of 3-2, and remained undefeated at home.
The Warriors got off to a shaky start, which was more of a fatigue factor having played three games in the last four days including a game in Bakersfield the night before.
“We struggled big-time offensively,” assistant coach Michael Houck said. “However, because of our intensity on the defensive end, it kept us in the game.”
The Warriors regained their composure and played well defensively the entire game.
Yet EC missed free throws that allowed the Cubs to get back into the game.
“We allowed them to get closer because of our missed free throws,” Shaw said. “In the last two minutes, we were four out of twelve from the free throw line.”
The previous night the Warriors had an impressive victory over Bakersfield, 67-53.
Bakersfield entered the game being ranked tenth in Southern California and eighteenth in the state.
However, the Warriors weren’t a bit intimidated by their ranking and defeated Bakersfield by a commanding double-digit margin.
It was a back and forth game during the first half with good defense at both ends of the court.
At the end of the first half, the Warriors found themselves down by only two points, and this was all the momentum that the Warriors needed.
“We played a great second half and ended up winning by 14 points,” Shaw said. “It was probably one of our best performances of the year.”
On Nov. 18-20, the Warriors participated in the Santa Barbara tournament.
The squad went into the tournament with strong aspirations of winning it all.
Unfortunately for the team, it just didn’t work out.
During the first game of the tournament, the women went up against Orange Coast but were defeated in the end, 55-49.
The Warriors were only trailing by one point with four minutes left, but could not muster enough offense to pull away with the victory.
“I think if we could have won that first game, then we would have had a great chance at winning that tournament,” Shaw said.
In the second game, the women took on Chaffey and were blown out, 62-43.
The Warriors struggled, maintaining possession of the ball against Chaffeys’ defensive press turning the ball over 27 times.
“We struggled all night,” Shaw said. “We didn’t handle their hard defensive pressure and they ended beating us by nineteen points.”
Both coaches agree that the tournament was a good experience for the women to encounter so early in the season.
They showed strong character by bouncing back to win their next two games.
Yet they still need to work on developing other areas of their game.
“It’s early still, but we are improving,” Houck said. “We need to work on being a lot more efficient as a team.”
The women are still trying to get to know one another and form their team chemistry while in the process of learning the system.
“As a whole, the women have a grasp of our system, and now it’s a point of perfecting it,” Houck said.
