Baker scores 20 in Chippewas win
Brandie Baker's team leading 20-point performance led the women's basketball team against Akron in a 78-57 win Wednesday in Rose Arena.
"I was pleased with our effort tonight," said coach Sue Guevara. "I felt that we did a good job executing our game plan. We knew coming in that Akron played a different style than we do. Our number one key was to control the tempo and that is what we did."
The Chippewas (13-10, 5-4 Mid-American Conference) got out to an early 7-2 lead just three minutes into the game. The Zips then went on 11-5 run to pull ahead 13-12 at the 10:40 mark of the first half. That lead would be the last time Akron (9-13, 4-5 MAC) would hold a one in the game.
From that point on, the Chippewas went on a 10-minute, 24-12 run to end the first half with a 36-25 advantage.
The opening minute of the second half saw junior forward Kaihla Szunko string together the first six points, adding to the CMU lead. The Chippewas would see their lead build to 19 points on a layup by Baker, a freshman, with 15:17 remaining in the game. The team's traded runs to end the game, eventually with CMU increasing its lead to over 20 points.
CMU's strategy was to control the game by pressing Akron and trying to slow down the tempo, Luckett said.
"Our game plan was to make them play our tempo," she said. "We wanted to have control of the tempo of the game. We didn't want to play down to their level and everyone sees how we play our game and we want to play fast every game."
Guevara believes that the plan was successful as the Chippewas scored 32 points on turnovers opposed to Akron's eight. CMU also outscored Akron 24-9 from the bench.
"I have been talking about the importance of our bench all year," Guevara said. "We also had a lot of people come off our bench which was good."
Junior Britni Houghton and Luckett scored 11 points in the win while Szunko added 10.
CMU travels to Bowling Green for a 2 p.m. Sunday game.
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