The Massachusetts women’s basketball team rode a strong defensive presence to a win in a game that felt closer than the final scored indicated, defeating Monmouth 76-53. The Minutewomen (2-2) took the lead in the second quarter and never looked back, though they were never able to put the nail in the coffin against the Hawks (0-4).
A combined effort led UMass on Friday night, with three players scoring in double digits. Megan Olbrys led the team in scoring, finishing with 20 points in her 36 minutes played. In addition to her 20-bomb, she also snagged five rebounds, an assist and finished with three steals. She shot 7-of-12 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe. Yahmani McKayle finished as the second-leading scorer, finishing with 17 points in addition to five rebounds, six assists, two steals and a block.
“[I’m] really proud of our group, just shared that with them in the locker room,” head coach Mike Leflar said. “[Friday], I really challenged them, they had some big goals … individual team goals, I said ‘we have to take a step forward just mentality wise, [Friday was] a big opportunity for us to do that’ … I thought we played with that kind of urgency [Friday], especially in the second quarter and especially in the fourth quarter to close out the game.”
Defense was the name of the game for the Minutewomen on Friday. The second quarter of the contest was a microcosm of the game as a whole, with UMass holding the Hawks to five points and 12.5 percent shooting from the field. Holding Monmouth to a paltry 32.8 percent for the entirety of the game, the Minutewomen consistently disrupted their opponents’ rhythm and forced them into tough looks.
Along with the aforementioned McKayle and Olbrys, Stefanie Kulesza, Allie Palmieri and Momo LaClair all added steals to the stat sheet. Jess Ross saw the first extended run of her collegiate career and added two blocks of her own, in addition to six points, nine rebounds and four assists. She finished as a game-high plus-29.
“…We actually just wanted to play a little more of our zone,” Leflar said. “We typically go 2-2-1 pressure into 2-3 zone, and some teams have gotten us on the press and we haven’t been able to get into the zone, so I think in the halfcourt it was more like ‘hey, let’s settle in and just take off the press at times, play some zone,’ I think that was effective … the last three days, we had a big emphasis on guarding one-on-one … these guys bought into that because this was a real one-on-one type of offensive team.”
UMass outperformed Monmouth in virtually every statistic on Friday night, with it grabbing nine more rebounds, dishing out nine more assists and turning the ball over five less times than the Hawks. Averaging 18 turnovers a game entering this contest, the Minutewomen cut down on their mistakes that had proven costly in their previous matchups against Harvard and New Hampshire.
Another area where UMass outdid Monmouth was in its bench production. The Minutewomen’s bench outscored the Hawks’ 16 to nine, with all nine of Monmouth’s bench points coming from Divine Dibula. Along with LaClair and Ross, Lilly Ferguson added to the tally with a last-second bucket in the fourth quarter, pouring it on the already deflated opponent.
“[The bench] is always going to have opportunity, we need everyone, one through 13 to be the best team we can be,” Leflar said. “It was nice to see [LaClair] hit those two big 3’s, that was awesome to see. If we can get that kind of scoring production … coming off the bench, that’s great … [Friday] was a big step I hope confidence wise for them to be able to take advantage of those opportunities and that’s a really good thing.”
UMass is next in action on Wednesday, Nov. 20, when it takes on Holy Cross at the Mullins Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. and the game can be viewed on ESPN+.
“[We] just make sure people know, when you come in here, it’s [going to] be a fight,” Leflar said.
Johnny Depin can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Jdepin101.
