Wichita State’s women’s basketball team jumped out to a 15-point lead at the end of the first quarter Wednesday evening in an exhibition against cross-town Newman and cruised to a 96-49 win over the Jets.
“I’m happy we got a chance,” head coach Terry Nooner said about the team’s performance. “We scored a lot of points, got to play against a different opponent, played as a team, shared the basketball (and) did a good job in winning the rebounding battle.”
The Shockers relied heavily on upperclassmen, as the starting five of Abby Cater, Jaila Harding, Taya Davis, Treasure Thompson and Cheyenne Banks are all graduate students.
“I feel like they’ve been through a lot and think they’ve kind of bonded on the fact that this is all their last kind of go around, and they wanted to end on a high note,” Nooner said. “Got a really mature team. I think they bonded really fast. I just like the way they play together.”
Harding, a Wichita native, transferred from New Mexico State over the offseason. She said she was excited to get on the court in her hometown.
She made her presence known early by hitting a 3-pointer on the first possession of the game and grew the Shockers’ lead to double-digits with back-to-back threes later in the first quarter.
“My teammates are like, ‘How you feel Jaila? You’re here at home for the first game,” Harding said.’ So I was just excited to go out there. And that’s what I do in practice every day, so I was ready to knock it down.”
Throughout the game, the Shockers were able to force multiple turnovers that resulted in fastbreak baskets.
“I really pride myself on defense,” Cater, a guard transfer from Austin Peay, said. “I just think just me naturally having that ability will somehow bring the team along and the team always has my back when it comes to defense. So, I just think it’ll be really important. It’ll help us get easy points.”
Wichita State led 26-11 at the end of the first quarter, and a steal and score from Cater broke a lid that lasted at least two minutes of game time. Throughout the rest of the period, the Shockers repeatedly coerced fouls that helped them grow their lead by getting to the foul line.
“I think it’s huge,” Nooner said about being able to get to the charity stripe. “I mean, getting 37 free throw attempts, that shows. We had our closed scrimmage really didn’t do a great job of getting a lot of free throws in that game.”
With the time winding down, junior guard Kyleigh Ortiz swished a three to grow Wichita State’s lead to 27 points at halftime, 53-26.
In the third quarter, the Shockers crashed the offensive boards to help grow their lead even more to 41 points, 78-39.
After junior guard Karys Washington made a put-back layup in the fourth quarter, Wichita State doubled its lead and forced Newman to call a timeout, 90-45. Instead of trying to bolster their lead, the Shockers decided to take a shot clock violation in their final possession.
Next up, Wichita State’s season begins against Division II Lincoln (Mo.). Tipoff against the Blue Tigers is scheduled for 6 p.m. in Koch Arena.
