By Kathlyn Craigie
Assistant Sports Editor
The women’s basketball team kicked off their season with two strong victories at home against Case Western University and Wilmington University this weekend.
Denison is coming off a 15-12 overall record from last season and beat Case 63-57 and Wilmington 64-49. The Big Red’s victorious weekend highlighted the team’s strengths and showed what the team needs to improve on going into the rest of the season and league play.
Jordan Holmes ’17 is a two year winner of first team all league NCAC and proved it this weekend with her aggressive rebounding and blocks. Holmes tallied 34 points over two games, as well as 12 blocks and 42 total rebounds.
Case began the game with tough defense and Denison struggled to make crisp passes. Although Case Western kept the game close throughout, Denison was ultimately victorious due to strong rebounding skills and went 22 for 61 in shots.
Both sides struggled at the beginning of the game perhaps due to first game jitters. Although the game was a bit sloppy, that did not deter Denison from being aggressive offensively and defensively. The Big Red point guards continuously looked down the key to Holmes for the shot. Holmes started this season hot and is definitely someone to keep an eye on.
Case pressed hard on defense so Denison looked to pass the ball back out to the top of the three point line during the game and continued passing up top the next day versus Wilmington.
The next day Denison started their game against Wilmington 11-0 going into the second quarter. Taylor Lindquist ’16 and Kellie Arter ‘16 led the team offensively throughout the first half of the game which allowed the Big Red to obtain a large lead.
As the game went on, Wilmington’s offense stepped up their game and started making more shots, but ultimately they could not recover from their first half performance.
Shooting guard Arter said that overall the team has the fundamentals of the game down but need to work on their turnovers. Since this was a problem last year she hopes the team can solve this problem early this season.
“If we continue playing like we did Saturday night than we will have a great season,” Arter said. “This season we have really put an emphasis on playing together and enjoying the game of basketball no matter what happens.”
Lindquist led the team with 18 points and four assists against Wilmington after making five points and one assist the previous night. Arter helped out this weekend with 18 points, Emily Krumpe ’17 with 12 and Erica Holmes ’17 with six points.
Valesha Province ’19 and Lucy Bancone ’19 came into the games this weekend with high intensity against the older girls on the opposing teams. The freshmen showed off their ball handling and shooting skills which will be a positive contribution to Denison’s season this year. Province went for 20 points this weekend and four assists while Bancone added three steals.
“This season we have really put an emphasis on playing together and enjoying the game of basketball no matter what happens,” Arter said.