After playing four games in the past eight days, N.C. State (3-1) battled fatigue in its 63-48 win against UNC-Wilmington (0-2) Friday night in the first game of a doubleheader with the men’s team.
Coach Kay Yow said she knew the game might be a struggle for the team after playing so many games in a short amount of time. She said the team really had to “dig deep” against the Seahawks in order to win.
“We really need some quality time for practice,” Yow said. “Especially with the number of underclassmen we have playing. It would really help if we could work a little bit more.”
The Wolfpack continued its offensive woes during the game — only shooting 35 percent on 23-of-65 shooting.
State hasn’t shot better than 43 percent all season and has shot 35 percent or worse in three of their four games.
Yow said the lack of scoring was a consequence of players on the team not being able to knock down open shots, and not players taking bad shots.
“I thought we had some good shots tonight that we just didn’t put down,” Yow said. “But fatigue and lack of quality practice time in the past week really hurt our shooting.”
In an effort to spark the offense, Yow experimented with the starting lineup for the first time this season — inserting senior forward Sasha Reaves and sophomore guard Shayla Fields. Removed from the starting lineup were freshman guards Nikita Gartrell and Megan Zullo.
Yow said she made the change due to Gartrell’s and Zullo’s struggles recently. She also did it to increase the height on the floor to help rebound.
“They have been really struggling,” Yow said. “As a coach, you never know if freshmen are struggling because they feel a lot on them, but I didn’t feel that way with them because they are such competitors.”
The insertion of Reaves to the starting lineup to play alongside junior forward Khadijah Whittington, the team’s leading rebounder, proved to help the team’s rebounding as the Pack outrebounded the Seahawks by 10 with 44 rebounds overall.
Of those 44 rebounds, 21 of them were offensive — leading to 25 second-chance points for State.
After a disappointing 30-point loss to Purdue last Wednesday, Reaves said the team tried not to think about its experience in West Lafayette and to look at the game for what it was — a new game.
“The attitude coming into this game was to bring it to them,” Reaves said. “I was telling them to take our frustrations out on them. That is what Purdue did with us so I told everyone it is our time to take it out on other people.”
Yow said the biggest challenge during the game has been the same challenge the team has faced all season — finding a lineup that gels and really makes the Pack “look like a team.”
She added finding the right lineup is something that will take time to discover.
“I don’t think that we will be able to find out until we practice more and face more competition,” Yow said. “We have a goal and we have to stay with it and reach the destination.”
Looking ahead, State will not have an opportunity to rest and practice for a week before it heads to Tucson, Ariz. on Friday to face Arizona.
