(Phoenix, AZ) After two weeks on the road, the Antelopes returned to the friendly confines of the Arena,
When Canyon left on their road trip, they were alone in second place in the WAC, but came back to campus in a three way tie for second place with a 6-4 conference record after dropping two straight to league leader California Baptist.
That fact didn’t go unnoticed by Head Coach Molly Miller. With that in mind, the Lopes got off to a scalding hot start both offensively and defensively. At the end of the opening quarter they shot 9-14 (64%) and held Seattle University to 30% shooting and only seven points. Canyon led 21-7.
The Antelopes were paced by Katie Scott with ten points. A big difference from games past, was that GCU was only giving Seattle one shot a possession.
With a little over half of the second quarter gone, Canyon had extended its lead to 35-10 athletes 5:41 mark.
The Red Hawks went on an 8-2 run trying to crawl out of the abyss they got themselves in with the slow start.
GCU scored twenty points in the second quarter to take a 41-20 halftime lead.
The Antelopes cooled down slightly from the field but still shot 53% hitting 16-30 shots.
Another concern was the great rebounding they had in the first quarter now was a deficit with Seattle holding a 18-16 edge.
Tiarra Brown and Scott led the scoring with 12 and 10 points respectively.
Coming out of the halftime locker room, the Lopes didn’t get their first points until the 7:12 mark with Taylor Caldwell hitting midrange jumper.
That seemed to right the ship as GCU with the help of three Red Hawk turnovers and an 7-0 run and a 54-25 lead.
With 3:22 left in the third quarter, the Seattle fell asleep on defense as a clear inbound’s pass from the right sideline went right into Brown for an easy turnaround layup. A cardinal sin in the game of basketball.
Coach Miller didn’t implement the three quarter court press until midway into the third quarter, which had bee a staple of her pressure defense all season long.
What had turned into a “stat game” from the get go Canyon used a lot of different combinations getting quality minutes to the bench which will pay dividends come tournament time.
The final quarter little had changed Seattle continued to miss layups and the Lopes still shooting well at 52%.
Four of the five Canyon starters had reached double figures and Finnish guard Venla Varis had a big game off the bench with eleven points.
The Lopes created 20 Red Hawk turnovers. Even thought they only went to the charity stripe eight times, they also make all eight free throws.
Distributing the ball tonight was another strong point as Laura Piera led the team with six assists that also led to a 10-18 performance behind the arc.
Grand Canyon might have played the most complete defensive game of the season holding Seattle to 24% shooting and only 12 made baskets the entire game. The RedHawks went the last 5:05 without scoring.
GCU put the hammer down from beginning to end and were happy to be home again with a resounding 90-43 victory.
Coach Miller will really stress the point of not letting down tomorrow as what happened a few weeks back after another blowout win.
With only one game left in the regular season, there’s no room for error if Canyon wants the #2 seed in the WAC Tournament from March 7th to 10th.
