Wright State’s weekend efforts was the tale of two games, with domination coming from both the Raiders and one of the fiercest opponents that Coach Kari Hoffman has faced to date.
Following the last-second loss to Loyola-Chicago, Wright State started the weekend against Ohio Christian. Elaina Rager took an off the ball injury in the match, so now with five players on the injured roster, a home match against the NCCAA’s Ohio Christian University presented an opportunity for Wright State to tune up and run plays with the new structure.
Ohio Christian was similarly disadvantaged themselves with only six players dressed.
The Raiders used that opportunity to run as many shooting plays as possible, as quickly as possible. The Trailblazers, for their part, committed to that play structure, going side to side with the Raider squad in a fast paced match. Ohio Christian was met with cold streak after cold streak, both through Wright State’s mixture of zone and man defense and a strong defensive rebounding effort from all players on the floor.
The lead climbed to 10, then 20, then 30, then the first half finished 57-10 in Wright State’s favor. Ohio Christian was led by Peyton Jones, but couldn’t get anything going on offense, leading to a 7 minute dry spell for the Trailblazers towards the end of the half. Wright State saw some strong contributions from
Wright State’s rebounding was the star of the show. Through the misses of Ohio Christian, the Raiders were constantly able to successfully box out the offense and turn the ball back around.
Continuing the relentless attack, the Raiders piled on more points, making more use of the active bench players like Paula Sevilla and Sydney Williams. Wright State continued to push the lead forward against the Trailblazers, ending the match 103-25.
With a whopping 80 field goal attempts and converting on just over half of them, the Raiders had six players with double digit points. Sevilla was just shy of a double-double with 9 PTs and 18 rebounds on the day. Megan Campbell led all scorers with 17 PTs, but took a fall in the third that looked seemingly like a head injury. Campbell would not play for the other match of the weekend. Wright State held Ohio Christian to 10% shooting, 6-60 overall with half of those coming from the arc.
“I think we got a good amount of players in that got a lot of minutes and a lot of reps,” Hoffman said. “That’s what these kinds of games are for, for them to feel the bright lights and have to make plays.”
Wright State then traveled 3 hours north to face No. 5 Michigan. The Wolverines started their season taking last year’s invincible team to task and defeating No. 2 UConn at home convincingly. Now with eight active players, Wright State would have its work cut out for them to compete.
Instead, Wright State ran right into the buzz saw that is a ranked opponent, going down 30-9 in the first and 62-19 at the half.
The game ended in a decisive Michigan victory, 109-52.
While the hot start for the Wolverines mirrored the Raiders against Ohio Christian, the circumstances did not. Turnovers, specifically on bad passes, were the Raiders worst nightmare. In addition to shooting over 60% from the field, Michigan held Wright State to less than 15 attempts overall through their defense. Jayden Terry led the Raiders in points, half of which came from the charity stripe.
“We need more composure and execution in those moments,” Hoffman said. “We didn’t execute the press break and that was frustrating. We handed them 33 first half points off of turnovers that we could’ve controlled.”
When the score was 80-30 in Michigan’s favor, the Wolverines put in their second line to do battle for the remainder. From then on, the Raiders kept Michigan from growing the lead much further, with Terry and Sagester leading the way on offense.
“I thought we kept fighting,” Hoffman replied when asked about the strong points of the game. “I think some players like Rylee and Jayden were ready and showed up with toughness.”
Terry led the way for the Raiders with 24 PTs going 12-14 from the free throw line, an important contribution in a game where the Raiders did not have many opportunities to shoot. Nonetheless, the Raiders did shoot 36% overall on the shots they did make. Sagester also had 10 PTs, including going 5-6 from the stripe as well.
Wright State’s next match takes them to Terre Haute to face the Indiana State Sycamores on November 13.
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