Marquette won its season opener for the fifth straight season, but head coach Terri Mitchell kept the win in perspective.,”The women's basketball team cruised to an 82-69 victory Monday night over Loyola University-Chicago. The Golden Eagles dominated the paint, outscoring the Ramblers 42-16 under the basket and outrebounding them 46-25.
Marquette won its season opener for the fifth-straight season, but head coach Terri Mitchell kept the win in perspective.
"Offensively we did a great job rebounding, but now we have to finish those," Mitchell said. "The turnovers we all know are unacceptable so it's not something that we walk and say, 'OK it's first game jitters.' That's just unacceptable."
The Golden Eagles committed 25 turnovers while forcing 31 on the defensive end.
Marquette got off to a quick start thanks in large part to its aggressive full-court press. The Golden Eagles went up 5-0 to start the game. Loyola fought back to take the lead 13-7.
However, the Ramblers' turnovers mounted, and Marquette's size advantage turned the game in its favor.
Loyola's leading scorer from a year ago, sophomore Maggie McCloskey, was held scoreless by the Marquette defense in the first half, but she hit five three-pointers in the second half and scored 17 points.
The Golden Eagles had 26 offensive rebounds while holding the Ramblers to just four.
Janelle Harris led five Marquette players in double figures with 13 points, and the balanced attack paid off on a night where Krystal Ellis was just 4-of-11 from the field.
"It is nice to know that I don't always have to be the person scoring all the points to make sure we have the win," Ellis said.
"If we can be balanced, we all know Krystal's going to have games like she did last year, you know, 29, 30, whatever, but the way we distribute the ball, pass it around, I think we're an extremely unselfish team to have five players in double figures in your first game," Mitchell said.
Ellis recorded a team-high four assists, as well as three steals and two blocks.
Erin Monfre provided a spark for the Golden Eagles off the bench, connecting on four three-pointers in seven attempts. Monfre hit just 27.7 percent from behind the arc last season.
"I think the main issue is confidence, and that comes from the staff and the players," Monfre said. "I had post players and guys tonight that were setting screens and really getting me open."
Marquette held Loyola to 48 attempts from the field while taking 75 shots, 23 of which were three-pointers.
"There's really few shots that I can say were bad shots," Mitchell said. "I thought we shot fast at times. We want to put up a lot of shots. We want to play a faster tempo, but in order to do that we have to work on defending better because we're getting the ball back if we miss."
The Golden Eagles' next game will be Saturday when they play Wisconsin at the Bradley Center.
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