There may have been a snowstorm outside, but inside the Al McGuire center Tuesday night, the Marquette women’s basketball team was nice and cozy.
Marquette continued its strong play at home beating South Florida 63-50 taking its record to 14-9 and 5-5 in the Big East. It is now 10-2 at the Al this year.
“I will say this over and over again, if your offense isn’t there, your defense will keep you in ball games,” coach Terri Mitchell said. “Just lock down, draw a line in the sand and say you are going to get it done defensively and that’s what our team did.”
Junior Angel Robinson led the Golden Eagles with 16 points and 6 assists, never forcing anything but constantly attacking the basket.
“After the DePaul game, I was forcing a lot of shots,” Robinson said. “So I really worked hard on trying to adjust to that.”
Mitchell seemed satisfied with the adjustments.
“Tonight I was really happy, again, with Angel’s great play,” Mitchell said. “She was steady, she was confident, she pushed the ball.”
Also contributing in the victory was sophomore Jessica Pachko who scored 15 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. More importantly, she held her own against South Florida’s 6-foot-3 senior Jessica Lawson, limiting her to only 17 points on five field goals.
“It’s like any other Big East game,” Pachko said. “I just played the way I always play. Play physical with her and seal her.”
The Golden Eagles started the game off poorly missing their first five shots and allowing the Bulls to jump out to a 5-0 lead.
Freshman Sarina Simmons started the scoring hitting on a short jumper at the 15:52 mark. That bucket was quickly followed by a fast-break score by Pachko.
After sitting with two fouls for six minutes, Robinson came into the came and took over scoring six points and dishing out two assists in just under four minutes helping Marquette take a 25-21 lead into the half.
The Golden Eagles increased their lead to seven off a Pachko lay-up and free throw in the first minute of the second half.
Just when it looked like Marquette would run away with it South Florida hit back to back three pointers to cut the lead to one.
Marquette was not phased though continuing to attack the basket and get points down low. It hit 21 of its 24 free throws in the game outscoring South Florida by 14 from the charity stripe.
South Florida couldn’t cut into the lead at any point in the rest of the half as Marquette went on to win the game 63-50.
