Women’s Basketball: Reising at top form in physical win
By JARED PURCELL
Sports Editor
Junior forward Hanna Reising got the game that she’d been waiting for on Monday night against IUPUI. Her season-high 19 points in 16 minutes and solid defense helped OU to a dominant 71-53 victory. Reising has dealt with sickness and injury as of late but is now feeling back to form.
“It’s kind of been a rough season for me so far and I’m just really focusing on playing hard and doing whatever my team needs to do,” Reising said. “That’s what I tried to do tonight.”
The game was all but over in the first half when OU went on a 21-0 run that lasted 9 minutes and 8 seconds and gave OU a 29-11 lead with 2:52 remaining in the first half. Reising came off the bench and scored 10 points during the run and finished the half with 12.
“We made some substitutions and we were still able to go on the run,” said head coach Beckie Francis. “That just shows the confidence that we have in our bench and the depth and confidence they have coming in to get the job done.”
Even though OU won easily on the scoreboard, the game was very physical, mainly due to the presence of IUPUI’s 6’5″ center Julia Whitted. Her 27 points against the Grizzlies matched a career high but she wound up being the only player to score double figures for IUPUI.
“We did have a game plan to stop [Whitted] and Jernisha Cann, so we stopped Cann,” Francis said. “The fact that we shut [Cann] and Nicole James down was also part of our strategy. We knew Whitted was going to get some points. We didn’t know it was going to be that many and that was a little frustrating, but she just got hot.”
Although she tied her career high, Whitted found little to celebrate in after the game.
“It’s frustrating when you are having a really good night and your team’s shots are just not falling,” Whitted said. “I mean that was it for us, our shots weren’t falling and they were scoring and we were getting really frustrated.”
Also joining Reising in double figures for OU was senior guard Jessica Pike with 14, junior guard Melissa Jeltema with 13 and sophomore center Brittany Carnago with 10. The win extends OU’s streak to eight games.
“We’re on an eight-game winning streak, but we’ve really started to spread out the scoring, which we didn’t do as much in the beginning of the year,” Pike said. “It’s a key part of our offense, which makes us hard to guard. So, it’s big going back on the road into two tough gyms and playing two really good league games.”
OU is set to leave on a Dakota road trip by taking on South Dakota State on Saturday in what is being seen as a possible Summit League Championship matchup preview. Oakland will then face North Dakota State on Tuesday.
GAME NOTES
Sharise Calhoun logged 38 minutes, more than anyone on the floor.
“I just don’t want to ever take [Calhoun] off the floor because she is such a good defender and the key to our defense,” Francis said. “Very rarely does she get beat. She was such a good track star and was actually being recruited by The Big Ten to run track, but she chose to play basketball. We know that she has that endurance and that she can just go forever.”