Inside play leads women's basketball over Lafayette

There were no smiles as the women's basketball team walked off the court after last night's game against Lafayette - even though they walked off with the victory.

Junior Maureen Lane started the game off with a quick layup - a fancy hook shot from under the hoop - that set the tone for the rest of the game. Layups were the tool of choice for both teams, leading to both the Tigers' frustration and their ultimate success.

Lafayette was able to score its layups not so much due to its own force down low as to poor defense by the Tigers.

"We were reaching around the high side too much," head coach Richard Barron said, "allowing [the Leopards] to catch and turn to shoot on the low side and put it in uncontested."Princeton struggled particularly with rebounding, offensively as well as defensively. They were out-rebounded by the Leopards 25 to 44.

"[Lafayette] simply outworked us. They would take a bad shot and no one rebounded. They scrapped and got garbage baskets," Barron said.

In an attempt to repair the shabby defense, Barron switched to a zone in the second half, hoping to plug up the key and prevent the Leopards from getting those easy lay ups.

But the zone proved equally, if not more, ineffective. After the switch to zone defense in the second half, Lafayette began to close the Tigers' 12-point lead. For the last quarter of the game, Princeton battled to stay ahead, and, despite several turnovers and sloppy defense, managed to clinch the victory.

"We didn't play good defense, and we gave them a lot of easy shots under the basket," junior point guard Allison Cahill said.

Princeton's layups were not the products of its opponent's poor defense but of knifing drives to the basket. In contrast to previous games, the Tigers' focused on post play more than on creating outside shot opportunities.

Cahill in particular repeatedly took her players to the hoop, unafraid to put up a shot in the face of taller post players in order to draw the foul shots.

Cahill finished the game with a season-high of 20 points, 14 of which were layups and four of which were free throws scored after layup attempts.

Free throws proved to be a valuable source of points late in the second half. Sophomore center Kelly Schaffer made five from the stripe to keep the Tigers ahead after Elizabeth Rojahn of the Leopards closed the gap to one point with a second three-pointer, 40 seconds left in the game.

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Even though they won, the Tigers are not satisfied. As senior forward Lauren Rigney said, "It was a win, and we're very grateful for that, but it wasn't very good basketball that we played tonight."

"Last year [the team] would have been happy with the win," Barron said. "This year, they want to get better, they want to improve, and that's a good sign."