Dominating at Home

I finally got a chance to watch the Lady Red Foxes in action at the McCann Center. They played their home opener Thursday night against Yale and then another home game Saturday against Bucknell. Let me tell you it was quite special to be able to see them in action and see how good they really are. Offensively you can see in the stat books that they dominate, but it's not until you see them play in person when you really discover how good they are. They're fast, agressive, smart, and my favorite is how unselfish they are on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

Offensively this team goes deep. In the starting backcourt Viani and Flores seem to be sharing the point gaurd position. Both of these girls look better than they ever have. They look faster, smarter, and offensively they're ability to attack the basket and finish is what impresses me most. But both are also doing a good job setting up the offense and getting others involved as well. The starting frontcourt is equally as scary. Fitz, Dahlman and Johnson are all capable of scoring double digits on any given night. Their versatility and finishing capabilites are what makes life so difficult on opposing forwards and centers. Then we can look that the deep, talented bench Brain Giorgis can turn to. Off the bench Brittany Engle brings her defensive affressiveness along with Sarah Smrdel who showed me how dangerouse she is on the low block and also outside the three point line. This girl shoots threes just like a gaurd. Then you also have the two freshman coming off the bench which show the future is also bright for Marist. Elise Caron is developing into a nice college point gaurd while Erica Allenspach (shooting gaurd) showed me she can do more than shoot the rock as she attacked the basket nicely with her penetration against Bucknell. The most important thing however for a team that has at least seven girls that can score in double digits every night is the fact they understand basketball is a team game. This team understands that to be successful, they have to be unselfish and share the basketball and what I have come to notice is that it doesn't matter to this team who is scoring, as long as someone is scoring. Giorgis' squad really understands the meaning of the word "team."

This carries over to the defensive side of the ball as well. They play excellent team defense and can really cause a headache for opposing players. One thing about Marist is the fact that they are excellent at rebounding the basketball. Their key is that on every shot, all five players on the floor are boxing out. This is obvious because on most defensive rebounds there are no opponents anywhere close. Marist really plays a well rounded game and showed that against both Yale and Bucknell. These aspects will continue to grow over the season, but they were apparent over the last two games at McCann.

Thursday: Marist 77 Yale 62
Saturday : Marist 68 Bucknell 56