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Michigan Tech forward Janie Tormanen attempts a layup during a game against Ferris State Saturday, Jan. 10, at the SDC Gym in Houghton. (David Archambeau\/For the Gazette)<\/p>\n
HOUGHTON \u2014 With wins last week over the Saginaw Valley State Cardinals and the Lake Superior State Lakers, the Michigan Tech Huskies women\u2019s basketball team had a bounce-back weekend after a tough home stand that saw them go 1-3.<\/p>\n
With the two wins, the Huskies improved to 11-5 overall and 5-3 in GLIAC play.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, super excited to be able to go on the road and get two wins against pretty good teams,\u201d said Huskies assistant coach Elisa Pietila. \u201cSaginaw and Lake State don\u2019t have great records in conference, but as coach Sam (Clayton) has talked about, every team in the GLIAC is playing pretty well. Any team can beat any team on any given night. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to go on the road and get two wins against Saginaw and Lake State at their place, it was definitely a really good weekend. I think, overall, one of our best weekends. Executing defensively and being able to get stops, which, in turn, led to our offense. That was really good to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wins served as a bit of a reset for the Huskies after the difficult home stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a rough weekend at home with Northern (Michigan) and Ferris (State) the weekend before,\u201d Pietila said. \u201cThey\u2019re both playing really well. We didn\u2019t play our best that weekend. To be able to reset, to have a good week of practice, our players were able to lock in to respond. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve had the right mindset all season. They\u2019ve been super committed to, obviously, trying to execute what we\u2019re doing each game, trying to execute the game plan, and to be able to, like I said, go on the road and get two wins, (which) was huge. I think it was good for a lot of our players to build some confidence. A lot of players had good weekends for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
One player who has really stepped up for the Huskies recently has been senior forward Janie Tormanen. She has been in double figures in four of the last five games, had three double-doubles over that stretch, and nearly added another against Saginaw Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cJanie is having a really good season,\u201d said Pieitla. \u201cHonestly, as the season goes on, she\u2019s playing better and better. She averaged a double-double over the weekend, and offensively she\u2019s been scoring for us. She\u2019s really efficient from the floor. When we need something, we can kind of get it into her and know she\u2019s going to get a good look for us. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think honestly, though, defensively is where she makes the biggest difference. She\u2019s our best communicator. She\u2019s super sharp, executing our ball screen coverage, telling our guards what they need to do, and then she has to guard multiple positions. So sometimes she\u2019s playing in the post. She\u2019s athletic enough and mobile enough where we have her on the perimeter at times guarding maybe a guard or a forward. So, she\u2019s in a tough position at times where she has to guard people differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another player stepping up in a big way has been junior guard Alyssa Wypych, who is playing some of her best offensive basketball as a Husky. She has scored in double figures in six of her last seven games, and in that seventh, she scored nine to lead the Huskies against the Wildcats.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlyssa\u2019s been more aggressive the last few weekends offensively, which is huge for us,\u201d Pietila said. We have four players averaging in double figures points-wise, which is huge. Obviously, (that) makes us a lot tougher to guard, and she does so many things right on both ends of the floor. She cuts when we need a basket. She\u2019s been getting a lot of offensive rebounds for put backs, or getting to the free throw line. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe did that quite a bit this weekend against Saginaw and Lake State, attacking a little bit from the perimeter, but she\u2019s kind of just a calming presence on both sides of the ball for us. A lot of people look up to her, and she\u2019s always been solid defensively. She has to guard the other team\u2019s best player a lot of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside Wypych in the back court has been senior guard Soraya Timms, who led the Huskies in scoring Saturday against the Lakers when she put up a career-high 20 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey work together well,\u201d said Pietila. \u201cI think they\u2019re still learning each other, obviously, with Soraya not playing too much until this season. But Alyssa cuts really well and Soraya is able to find that. There\u2019s a few times against Lake State where we were just having Soraya come off ball screens, and there was a few times where Alyssa\u2019s girl lost vision. She had to help up on Soraya and was able to backdoor cut and get a few easy layups and buckets that way. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat just makes our offense so much easier when we have players that are able to do that and then play off of each other. (It) makes it a lot more efficient and easy for us to get good looks offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scouting the Warriors<\/p>\n
The Wayne State Warriors come into this weekend 12-4 overall and 7-1 in GLIAC play. They are coming off a sweep of Wisconsin-Parkside and Roosevelt last week. Their one loss in GLIAC play was to the No. 1 Grand Valley State Lakers on Jan. 8<\/p>\n
They are led offensively by junior guard McKenna Ferguson, who is averaging 16.3 points per game. She shoots 46.1% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
Senior forward Taylor Thompson averages near a double-double at 14.0 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Senior forward Gabi Lutchka has also been very good, averaging 13.9 points per game.<\/p>\n
Scouting the Pride<\/p>\n
The Purdue Northwest Pride are 3-13 overall for the season, and 1-7 in GLIAC play after a weekend that saw them get swept by Roosevelt and Wisconsin-Parkside, but that doesn\u2019t mean they will be an easy victory.<\/p>\n
Senior forward Alyssa Cole leads the team in scoring, averaging 13.7 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. Sophomore guard Ciara Sims averages 11.9 points per game. <\/p>\n
Sophomore guard Cameryn Phillips has also been strong, scoring 10.8 points per game. Sophomore guard Riley Milausnic is the fourth Pride player to average in double figures with 10.5 points per game.<\/p>\n
Game times<\/p>\n
The Huskies and Warriors are set to tip off Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the SDC Gym in Houghton. Saturday, the Huskies and Pride will battle starting at 12 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan Tech forward Janie Tormanen attempts a layup during a game against Ferris State Saturday, Jan. 10, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,75510,75508,75509,4251],"class_list":{"0":"post-550590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-huskies-womens-basketball-returns-home-looking-to-build-off-strong-road-trip","10":"tag-huskies-womens-basketball-returns-home-looking-to-build-off-strong-road-tripmichigan-tech-sports","11":"tag-huskies-womens-basketball-returns-home-looking-to-build-off-strong-road-tripsports","12":"tag-local-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115931980390978071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}