Women's basketball moves up in MAC West standings, Guevara ties record
Coming into the week, the Central Michigan women’s basketball team was in third place in the Mid-American Conference West Division with just eight games left in the regular season.
Now, the Chippewas sit alone atop of the MAC West, and have won four games in a row.
CMU (18-6, 10-2 MAC) has the same conference record as Northern Illinois but holds the tiebreaker over the Huskies because of a 109-94 win on Wednesday in Dekalb.
After beating NIU, the Chippewas came back to McGuirk Arena to take on their in-state rival Western Michigan in part of the annual ”Play4Kay” game, where fans donated more than $700 for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.
CMU beat the Broncos in their all-pink uniforms by a final score of 94-83 on Saturday.
Here’s a look at how the games went:
Road Success
A lot of times on the road this year CMU has struggled to score the ball consistently with multiple players. During this four-game win streak, the Chippewas may have found whatever they needed to get past those woes.
NIU came into the game with just one home loss on the entire season, and riding a four-game win streak and averaging a MAC-leading 88 points per game.
After a pretty even played first quarter, CMU was the team doing the running, and NIU had no answer for it.
The Chippewas went on a 23-3 run in the second quarter that put them ahead, and ended up being what propelled them to victory.
A big part to this run was CMU’s offensive rebounding. The Chippewas out-rebounded the Huskies 13-2 on the offensive glass in the first half, posting a 58-30 overall advantage on rebounds for the game.
Head coach Sue Guevara said the team came in prepared for a lot of scoring, but knew whoever played harder on defense would win the game.
“We knew it was going to be a shootout and we knew it would have to be on the defensive end of the floor,” Guevara said. “If you look at the rebounding, that tells the story right there. We talk about it all the time — rebounding wins championships.”
Five Chippewas finished in double figures, led by sophomore forward Reyna Frost and Presley Hudson who each had 24 points.
Frost had a double-double with 18 rebounds and junior forward Tinara Moore also had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
Junior guard Cassie Breen added 16 points to go along with three assists, and junior guard Aleah Swary scored 21 points off of the bench while adding seven rebounds.
Swary said her good looks at shots were only there because of her teammates inside play.
“Really it all started with the double teams in the post, our post has been strong the past couple of games and that opened it up for me to shoot,” she said. “Tonight, it was really just about rebounding, but we gave up a lot of points, so we need to play better defense moving forward.”
Taking First Place
Riding a three-game win streak, with two back-to-back 100-point performances on the road, CMU came into Saturday’s looking to add to the Broncos' four-game losing streak.
WMU started the game with a 7-0 run after CMU made the opening basket, but the Chippewas matched the run with a 7-0 run of their own.
With the game staying pretty close through the first quarter, Breen hit a 3-pointer and a couple of buckets inside to give CMU a 33-24 lead, forcing WMU to call a timeout.
The teams traded buckets until halftime where the score was 45-36 in favor of CMU.
After WMU went on a 6-0 run midway through the third quarter, Hudson scored eight points in a span of two minutes to close the quarter, giving CMU a 70-59 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
From there, CMU controlled the game and finished off the Broncos with free-throws to seal the victory.
Guevara described the game as “hard” due to the amount of fouls called on both sides.
“I thought it was hard because of the 27 (WMU) fouls called and 22 (CMU) fouls called because it made it hard to get any kind of a flow,” Guevara said. “When the game is being called a certain way, we need to adjust sooner. The next time we go out, we have to be much better defensively. Being disciplined is what we need to do.”
All five starters finished with double figures. Breen led the way with 23 points and went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line. Hudson had 15 points and seven assists, Moore put up 12 points and six rebounds, and Frost had 10 points and nine rebounds.
Senior forward Jewel Cotton totaled 21 points, her highest total since Nov.18 against Furman.
“The last couple of games I haven't been getting the shots that I wanted to get," Cotton said. "I felt like I was giving the opponent what they wanted. I just told myself 'take it slow. I have a mid-range game, so use it'. It worked well for me today.”
Tying History
With the win against the Broncos Saturday, Guevara won her 171st game as the head coach for the Chippewas, tying her with Donita Davenport for the most in program history.
Guevara credited Davenport for her success as the coach, but said she wasn't worried about her record and is more focused on what's ahead.
“I always did admire Donita (Davenport) when I wasn't here yet. She did a phenomenal job in her time here,” Guevara said. “To be honest, I had no idea I was even near that record, I’m just focused on winning down the remaining stretch of tough games we have.”
The Saginaw native also needs just six more wins to reach 300 career wins as a head coach. Guevara posted a 123-82 record during her time with Michigan.
Breen said she thinks Guevara is a great coach because of the way she pushes her players to reach their goals.
“Sometimes we don't hit all of our challenges, but (Guevara) is very charismatic by always pushing us to that limit,” she said. “If we’re not hitting it the first time, we will get it the next quarter. Of course she is going to tear us a new one at that point, but she is always there to pat us on the back afterward."
