2008 Woodie Awards
Women's basketball sends Pioneers packing at double-header
Evan Crawley
Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: Sports
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The Rams took the first part of a Friday night double feature by stifling the Pioneers with a 2-3 zone defenses.
"We're really long and tall as a team right now, Whitney Hollis is 6 foot 3, myself I'm 6'2." We have a lot of girls that are six feet tall ... and we're really athletic so it works well for a zone [defense]," junior Tanja Licina said.
Centers Licina and Hollis, a senior, took the daunting task of stopping the Pioneers' Kaitlin Sowinski, a Rhode Island product and top Sacred Heart threat.
"She's a really good player, but everything comes from us focusing on our defense," Licina said.
The tandem did not completely stop Sowinski, but held her to just 13 points on 5-of-12 shooting and only four offensive rebounds.
"One of the keys was trying to control Kaitlin Sowinski," Rams coach Tom Garrick said. "She was coming back home so you knew she was going to play with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, so we knew we had to keep her from getting loose."
In terms of percentages, Licina had a poor day from the field, finishing 4-of-13 for nine points, but excelled in facilitating the offense, with most of the Rams' possessions running through the post.
"Offensively we are always trying to start inside and work our way out," senior Safi Mojidi said. "We have many capable post players that finish strong inside, and then we have a lot of people who can shoot from the outside."
Mojidi led the Rams in scoring with 11 points and was one of four Rams with two of the team's 10 steals en route to forcing the Pioneers into 23 turnovers.
"As the point guard/shooting guard I'm trying to make sure that people are in the right places at the right times to score and that I'm in the right place to score myself," Mojidi said.
The Rams trailed just two times throughout the contest, once at 3-0 and again at 7-5 for a total of three minutes and 10 seconds.
Freshman Megan Shoniker tied the game with a jumper at 7-7 and senior Erin Cournoyer put the Rams ahead for good on lay-up off a dish from senior Mia Marcus with 13:13 to go in the first half. The two teams battled back and forth for the rest of the first half, with Rhody grabbing a 28-21 advantage at halftime.