Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
For Maryland Head Coach it has been a whirlwind past few weeks for the program and a team that once stood at #2 in the Nation. Tonight, the first half of the game against Perdue reminded us of what happened for the past two weeks and it wasn’t good. Luckily, we had two more quarters after Frese probably reminded this team at the half what they needed to do. Big second half difference in the 86-71 victory.
Frese said after the game that her team looked more like themselves in the fourth quarter. After trailing by as many as six points in the first half, Maryland outscored the Boilermakers in the final frame, 27-18.
Next, on Sunday, Maryland will visit No. 1 South Carolina. Could this be the game that Frese gives Dawn Staley a run for her money and they get their mojo back?
“We talked about it if we play [a first] half like that, that’ll be, you know, easily a 30 point spread. So, we’ve got to come out with, you know, we’ve got to sustain it,” Frese said. “I mean, we came out with a great punch, but then we allowed them back in the game and didn’t sustain it. And so we got to be able to learn through that quickly.”
Junior guard Ashley Owusu led the Terps with 20 points, while graduate guard Katie Benzan and sophomore guard/forward Angel Reese each added 15 points.
This also the first game in the last few outings where Owusu wasn’t double teamed on every play in the fourth quarter, something Frese has not been able to do when she was short players. Tonight this was the same team that has dominated play in the Big Ten past few seasons. The test against the Gamecocks will be the first of many coming up against other ranked opponents.
