Published: January 21, 2009 11:58 pm         

Women's Basketball Rivalry: Rose-Hulman continues recent momentum against Woods

TERRE HAUTE — It took Rose-Hulman nine years and a day to finally wrest the Clabber Girl Trophy from the grasp of St. Mary-of-the-Woods — the latter school winning the first 11 games in this cross-town rivalry which began in December of 1995.

But once the Engineers won for the first time in 2004, they seem determined to retain the trophy at their eastside campus — winning for the fifth straight time on Wednesday.

Rose placed four players in double-figure scoring and forced 30 Woods’ turnovers en route to a convincing 70-58 victory over SMWC in women’s college basketball in Hulbert Arena.

“It was very much a team effort … we played with a little more intensity tonight,” stated Rose coach Jon Prevo. “I thought our defense didn’t give them a lot of opportunities going to the basket and that caused them some problems.

“We knew we had to defend the [3-point] arc. [SMWC] only got five [attempts] in the second half, which was good … they were 4-of-10 in the first half. And we kept them off the foul line.”

Rose generally eschews the 3-point shot, but four 3-pointers — two late in the first, two early in the second half — enabled the Engineers to break open a competitive contest early.

At the game’s outset, SMWC was hitting the 3-point shot. Freshman Jacci Martin — playing just her seventh game due to injury — drained three from beyond the arc. SMWC led for the first seven minutes, then the two teams battled through five lead changes and two ties late in the first half.

SMWC’s Chelsey Barron scored on an old-fashioned 3-point play to give the Pomeroys what would be their last lead of the game at 23-21 with 5:15 remaining in the first half.

Rose’s Bethany Brisco responded with a jumper to knot the score at 23-23. Moments later, Nicole Klass and Brisco hit back-to-back 3’s, then at the outset of the second half, Klass and Brisco again hit 3’s, keying a 14-2 run and the Engineers were never threatened again.

“Since right before Christmas and just after Christmas, we’ve been taking about nine or 10 3’s a game and we’re shooting about the 50 percent range,” Prevo explained. “Lot of that is how teams are playing us, they’re sagging inside to take away our inside [game]. That’s creating things for our players on the perimeter.”

Double-digit scorers for Rose were Alisa Dickerson and Brisco with 13 points apiece, while Donna Marsh and Klass added 12 and 11 points respectively. Dickerson nearly had a double-double with a game-high nine rebounds.

“We just didn’t come to play,” stated SMWC coach Deanna Bradley. “We were our own worst enemy today. When you have 30 turnovers you aren’t going to hardly beat anybody.

“Rose played as I expected them to play. We simply didn’t play our game tonight. And that’s been typical of us. We played a typical game for how we’ve been doing things this year.

“We don’t want to work hard. We pick moments to be aggressive. At this point, I’m pretty much out of words to be honest. We had probably had three kids that truly came to play. Chelsey [Barron], Kendra [Stumler], and Brooke [Brown] … but the rest of the team should’ve just stayed home.”

Barron accumulated 18 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals. Brown and Stumler were close to double-doubles, both with eight points and eight boards. Martin had 11 points, all in the first half.



St. Mary-of-the-Woods 58

Player mi fg 3pt ft r a pf tp

Brown 30 4-9 0-1 0-1 8 1 4 8

Martin 38 5-8 3-4 0-0 2 2 2 11

Stumler 32 4-9 0-0 0-1 8 4 3 8

Tracy 21 2-8 1-5 0-0 4 1 2 5

Barron 40 5-11 1-2 7-7 7 3 5 18

Birt 12 2-4 0-0 0-0 2 1 0 4

Blickenstaff 19 0-2 0-0 1-2 1 1 1 1

Trimble 10 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 5 1 0

Payne 9 1-1 1-1 0-0 2 0 0 3

Totals 200 22-54 6-15 8-11 36* 18 18 58

Rose-Hulman 70

Player mi fg 3pt ft r a pf tp

Banet 18 2-6 0-2 0-0 3 1 1 4

Dickerson 35 4-8 0-1 5-6 9 3 0 13

Marsh 29 5-8 0-0 2-4 6 2 1 12

Klass 36 4-8 3-5 0-0 4 2 1 11

Baca 36 3-13 0-0 0-0 5 5 4 6

Brisco 25 3-4 2-2 5-6 0 1 5 13

Bowermaster 13 0-2 0-0 2-3 3 1 2 2

Ridgway 8 4-5 0-0 1-4 2 0 0 9

Totals 200 25-54 5-10 15-23 34* 15 14 70

Halftime score — Rose-Hulman 31-26. FG Pct. — SMWC .407, R-H .463. 3-pt FG Pct. — SMWC .400, R-H .500. FT Pct. — SMWC .727, R-H .652. Steals — SMWC 14 (Martin 4, Barron 3, Brown 3), R-H 10 (Baca 3, Marsh 2). Turnovers — SMWC 30, R-H 24. Blocks — SMWC 1 (Martin), R-H 4 (Dickerson, Marsh, Baca, Bowermaster). Technical foul — Marsh. (*) Includes team rebounds — SMWC 2, R-H 2. Att. — 975.

Next — Rose-Hulman (5-10) travels to Bluffton for a Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference game at 1 p.m. on Saturday. SMWC (1-18) hosts St. Louis Pharmacy at 2 p.m. at the old Clinton gym on Saturday.