Daily Archives: January 7, 2010

A trip to the West Coast

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Holly Harvey, junior guard for the No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan Titans, has been blogging for D3hoops.com throughout the season. Here’s her latest report on the team’s trip to California.

Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus is my jam. If you ask any of my teammates what got them through 6 A.M. pre-season conditioning sessions I have no doubt their answers will be Holly singing Party in the USA. Naturally I was pretty pumped when I learned that our winter trip this year was to southern California because the song begins with “hopping off a plane at LAX” which is just what we would be doing. There was no time to savor the moment of hopping off the plane though because we had to run through LAX in order to make it to the car rental place before it closed. Luckily we’re in game shape and made it just in time, though I’m sure we drew some attention running with our matching green travel suits and bags.

Once we hit Hollywood and Beverley Hills the next day we blended right in with the large crowds. We walked down Hollywood Boulevard and even snagged a team picture with Captain Jack Sparrow and some of his crew from Pirates of the Caribbean. We took a tour of Kodak Theater and learned about seat fillers at big award shows. I think it’s safe to say we all took a moment to consider applying for jobs as seat fillers as we are a little star crazed. Following our day of touring we headed to the Staples Center to catch a match -up between the Clippers and the Celtics. Although there was some back and forth cheering down our row for Ray Allen of the Celtics and Chris Kaman of the Clippers, we were all really excited when the Clippers won on a buzzer beater. The following day was a more relaxed and chill day as we visited a spa. We had access to outdoor pools, hot springs, steam rooms, and our favorite, a mud bath. After a long semester, finals, and hectic holiday traveling it was just what we needed. We also got to tour one of the best wineries in California.

Along with all of our tourist activities we played two games on the west coast. We faced the University of La Verne and the University of Redlands. Although we did not seem to be on our regular game out there but we won both. Upon returning from California we finished up our non-conference schedule with a game at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. We were back on our game as we shot the ball very well and made all the rotations in our press. Junior Nikki Preston had a monster game with 25 points, she shot the lights out. We currently stand at 11-0 and I think the 87-58 victory at Whitewater was a good confidence booster heading into CCIW play this week.

We must now shift all of our focus to our conference opponents. I think we will face more challenges in conference this year but I think we are well prepared for them. I am looking forward to our second conference game against Carthage College. I think it will be a good match up and a victory could set the tone for the rest of the conference season. Our main goal right now is to go undefeated in the regular season and to host the conference tournament. I am excited with where our season journey has led us so far but even more excited for the next part of the journey into conference.

Owenby’s perfect night

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Maryville (Tenn.) Daily Times writer Marcus Fitzsimmons should be a familiar name to hard-core Division III fans. Here’s a feature he wrote from Wednesday’s Maryville-Greensboro game:

Owenby’s perfect night goes for naught

By Marcus Fitzsimmons
marcusf@thedailytimes.com

Ever hit the trash can with a coke can when you knew you should have missed?

Lewis Owenby had that kind of feeling for a full game.

The junior for Greensboro College went 12-for-12 from the floor Wednesday night against Maryville in a 93-78 loss to the Scots in Boydson Baird Gymnasium.

“The first one I put up just bounced in off the glass and I was like, ‘woah’,” said Owenby.

Battling Maryville’s Greg Hernandez the Black Mountain, N.C., product found himself nearer the foul line than the basket early but scrapped that strategy with his second kiss-off-the-glass jumper.

“We didn’t do a good job defending him at all,” said Maryville head coach Randy Lambert. “But to his credit he knocked down some of those shots from outside the paint.”

Adding to his range was something Owenby admits working on over the summer, but he never imagined a night like Wednesday.

“I was just playing within our game,” said Owenby. “I didn’t really think about it until after the game.”

The junior left the floor after picking up his fifth personal with 2:53 remaining and not even the coaches were aware of the performance until a miscredited miss at the 1:58 mark was corrected on the box score.

“That kind of night on that many shots in this game, its just unheard of to have a perfect night,” said Greensboro coach Bryan Galuski. “It was obviously a great shooting night for him.”

Owenby had been averaging 8.8 points per game and had a season high 17 on 7-for-9 shooting against LaGrange before his 27-point performance Wednesday. His only weak spot was the foul line, where he was a merely human 3-for-5.

Greensboro opens USA South play at Averett on Saturday.

Marcus Fitzsimmons is a sports writer for The (Maryville) Daily Times covering Maryville College, the GSAC and USA South.