THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 17, 1997 TAG: 9702170167
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: 57 lines
When your team gets blown out by 60 points, it can be hard to find the positives, but senior forward Julie Hamiel thought of at least one after her Tribe was routed 96-36 by Old Dominion on Sunday afternoon at William & Mary Hall.
``I'll always be able to tell my kids,'' Hamiel said, ``that I played against Old Dominion back in '97.''
Let's hope the kids don't ask about Tribe highlights because there weren't many as the second-ranked Lady Monarchs (23-1, 13-0) coasted to their 22nd straight victory.
Clarisse Machanguana led the way for ODU with 28 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks. Nyree Roberts scored 18, Mery Andrade 12 and Ticha Penicheiro 10 to go with her eight assists. Hamiel had the best day for William & Mary (5-17, 2-11), with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
``I thought we attacked the rim extremely well. Our patience got better as the game went on against the zone,'' said ODU coach Wendy Larry, whose team shot 63 percent from the field in the second half. ``Collectively, we worked as hard tonight as we have as a group in awhile.''
The Lady Monarchs scored the first nine and led 27-3 in the initial 12 minutes. Like the rest of the teams in the CAA, the Tribe was overmatched by posts Machanguana and Roberts, who collected 29 first-half points. The Lady Monarchs led 44-18 at the half and opened the second with a 19-2 run.
And unlike ODU's 74-36 win over the Tribe on Jan. 12 in which the Lady Monarchs outside shooting line read an uncharacteristic 0-for-11, they converted 6 for 14 on Sunday. Aubrey Eblin's three treys gives her 74 all-time, breaking the school record set by Lee Etta Cummings for most career 3-pointers.
``Last time, I thought we did a better job defensively,'' said Tribe coach Trina Thomas Patterson. ``They didn't get those shots; Eblin didn't score those 3s. At this point there goals are much different than ours.''
The Tribe, Patterson said, is playing for the next two weeks, trying to regroup for next week's CAA Tournament. And with a 2-11 conference mark, William & Mary is a likely candidate for the tournament's play-in game.
ODU, on the other hand, will go into the tournament top-seeded and a heavy favorite to win its sixth straight CAA title. That would likely lead the Lady Monarchs to a No. 1 regional seed for the NCAA Tournament.
And although Hamiel said the Tribe went into the game knowing this, thinking it had nothing to lose, William & Mary played sloppy and scared throughout, commiting 26 turnovers and being outrebounded by 12.
``I didn't think they would be as intimidated on their own floor as they were on our floor,'' Larry said. ``I'm not saying they didn't play through it, but initially there's a shellshock when you're playing against height and quickness and your first shots don't go down.''
The Tribe first, middle and final shots had trouble finding net. The Tribe hit 21 percent from the field for the game after going 18 percent in the second period. That included a 2-of-21 effort from the bench.