Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming coach Joe Legerski talks to his team earlier in the season.
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
It’s been a long and winding road for the Wyoming Cowgirls this season and the home schedule is coming to a roundabout end with two final games in the A-A.
The Cowgirls host rival Colorado State on Wednesday at 7 p.m., before taking on Air Force in the Arena-Auditorium at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
For a program in transition, the next two weeks will be critical for what is considered a successful season.
“It’s important getting a little momentum going into the tournament,” Wyoming coach Joe Legerski said. “As we wind down., we have two very difficult road games next week with BYU and New Mexico. It will be nice to come out, play well, compete and play in front of our fans.”
The young Cowgirls, 5-7 in league play and 13-12 overall, have played well down the stretch, something that Legerski has been pleased with. So have the young Rams, 4-9, 9-17, who nearly pulled off a monumental upset two weeks ago, losing to San Diego State 62-61 in San Diego.
Legerski said CSU is a much improved program from the last couple of years.
“It is going to be a very hard-fought game, as it always is,” Legerski said. “We’re going to have to go out there and play very well for 40 minutes; we’re going to need to make some shots. That is always important for this group, that we go out and get started early, rather than constantly fighting from behind. We took a look at the TCU game and we had great opportunities to score early, unfortunately the ball didn’t go down.”
The last time the two teams met, they went down to the wire before the Cowgirls prevailed 64-61 in Moby Arena. Wyoming had a big first-half lead and almost gave it up before holding on at the end.
“The first time we played very well for 20 minutes and I thought CSU played very well the second 20 minutes," Legerski said. “It’s about making runs. We have to make sure that our runs are longer than the opponent’s runs are. We were hanging on at the end. That was something that we had not found a way to win and we were able to play a lot people close, so it was very important for us to pull a game out and get some confidence to a group that was lacking confidence at that point and time.”
The Cowgirls finished 2-1 on a recent three-game stretch, losing to TCU on Saturday, 60-47. A horrendous start shooting the ball proved to be the difference in the outcome.
Legerski said he was pleased with how they attacked the zone against TCU, but not with how they finished.
“We just missed several shots and missed several shots at what I call point-blank range," he said. “I tell the team that I am not asking you to make every 3-point shot, but we need to make every shot within three feet. We have Kristen (Scheffler), Megan (McGuffey) and Rebecca (Vanderjagt) go 3-of-29 and that is difficult when you have three starters who are shooting that poorly. Hopefully, that is only one game.”
Take away one tough shooting night and the Cowboys have made some positive strides. It’s all about finishing those strides in the next couple of weeks.
“It’s hard to believe that we are down to the end,” Legerski said. “I think we’re anxious to get out and play again.”
No comments:
Post a Comment