FULTON, Mo. -- The No. 19-ranked William Woods University women's basketball team opens the 2013-14 conference portion of its schedule on Thursday night, as they host American Midwest Conference rival No. 13 Columbia College. Tip-off for the game, presented by Cost Cutters, is set for 5:30 p.m.
William Woods (5-1) is coming off a 63-49 victory on Monday night against Lindenwood University-Belleville. Blake French came off the bench and scored a team-high 12 points in the win, as she was one of three WWU players to post double-figures.
After allowing an average of 85 points over its last three games, the Owls trademark defense bared down and held a Lady Lynx squad that was averaging 86.4 points coming into Monday's matchup, to a season-low 49.
"I think we emphasized our defense a lot in the past week," Head Coach Dan Chapla said. "We watched a lot of film and did a lot of defensive drills to get us back to where we were earlier in the year. I thought we played great defense in the first two games, but we got away from it here recently. We wanted to reestablish our defensive mindset, and we did that Monday night."
So far on the year, the Owls have been a higher scoring squad as they are averaging 73 points per game, due in large part to having three players who are averaging over 11 points per contest.
Katie Scherder is one of those three players, as she leads the team in scoring (12.8) and rebounding (6.3) after six games. The Bowling Green, Mo., native was limited to just six points in Monday's victory, but did tie her season-high in rebounds with nine.
No. 13 Columbia College (2-3) comes into Anderson Arena on the heels of a 78-55 loss at No. 21 University of the Cumberlands. The Cougars have dropped three of their four last games, which includes a 79-74 home loss to Lindenwood-Belleville on Nov. 11. Â
"No matter what their record is, it's still Columbia College," stressed Chapla. "They have the best guard in the league (Heather English) and one of the best three-point shooters in our conference (Tierney Seifert). They have some new players they are trying to work in, and are battling through a major injury, but regardless of what their record is, we know they will be a tough team to beat."
Two-time AMC Player of the Year, Heather English, paces the Cougars offense with her 19.8 points per game average on an impressive 51.1 percent from the floor. Despite three losses, the Cougars are still a high-scoring bunch, as they are averaging 78.2 points on 46.5 percent shooting as a team.
Stopping English will be the focal point for the Owls defense, as she has shredded them for an average of 20.7 points in three contest last season, which included a 27-point performance her last time in Fulton back on Feb. 23.
"We cannot allow her to get into the high 20's like she did last year," Chapla said. "We have to continue playing great defense and really limit English and Seifert. If those two get hot, we could really be in for a long night."
This will be the earliest that these two teams will face each other since Chapla has be at WWU, yet he doesn't see it any different from another AMC contest.
"This is the first time we have seen Columbia during the first semester since I've been here. That's because of the addition of two teams in our league, so we had to push our conference schedule up by a month or so. This is a big rivalry, and we are excited to play them, but we still have 21 conference games after Thursday."
Columbia College holds the 24-15 all-time advantage in the series, and were a perfect 3-0 against the Owls last season.
"Columbia is the Goliath of our league, so to speak," expressed Chapla. "We've battled with them over the past few years, got some nice wins against them, but we haven't beat them in a year and we would really like to get our conference season started right with a victory on Thursday."
Check back with wwuowls.com for a full recap of this and every game during the 2013-14 season.
