SPRING ARBOR, MI – It took a little while for the Spring Arbor women's basketball team to get the motors running, but once they did there was no stopping the Cougar offense as they ran past the Racers of Northwestern Ohio 71-48 Wednesday night at Spring Arbor University's Bockwitz Court.
Carlie Newman poured in 24 points hitting five of eleven 3-pointers and Jessica Garrison added 17 points on five of nine from beyond the arch to lead the Cougars to the season opening win.
Kylie Townsley just missed a double-double on the night scoring nine points and hauling in ten rebounds.
"It's nice to get a win under our belts the first game out," said Head Coach, Ryan Frost. "The obvious thing that stands out in the box score is the 14 3-pointers we hit. But I think I'm more pleased with our defensive effort. We played as a unit really well tonight."
Rachel Driesenga had a full night with eight points and seven rebounds and Karly Bender dished out six assists against just two turn-overs running the point for the Cougars. LeAnn Porter was perfect from the field hitting both of her 3-pointers for six points and Lindsey Burnside made her Spring Arbor debut with five points and four rebounds.
The Cougars spotted the Racers six points and didn't score a points until three minutes and 37 seconds into the game. After five and a half minutes Spring Arbor was down 8-2 and it was at that point, the Lady Cougars pressed the pedal to the metal.
In the last ten minutes of the first half, the Cougars closed the half outscoring UNOH 22-0 to head into the locker room with a 40-18 lead at the break.
The second half got just a little interesting as UNOH staged a minor comeback. The Cougars built a 29 point lead with eleven minutes remaining and the Racers cut that lead to 12 points with 3:19 remaining on the clock. But, on the next three possessions for Spring Arbor, the Cougars hit 3-pointers each and like they did in the first half, SAU closed out the second half with an 11-0 run to close out the game for the win.
Spring Arbor (1-0) will travel to Dearborn to face UM-Dearborn on Saturday afternoon for a 3:00 tip off with the Wolves. UM-Dearborn is currently 0-1 after falling to Rochester College 56-64 on October 26.
