The MU women’s basketball team currently sits at fourth place in the
MAAC, following their winning streak.
GOJASPERS.COM / COURTESY
Andrew Mannion, Sports Editor
While many students had to support the Lady Jaspers from afar over winter break, they’ve continued to add on to an impressive record. At the halfway mark of the season, the women’s basketball program finds themselves with a 9-6 record, with a 3-3 record against the MAAC.
After finding themselves in a four-game skid to start December, the Lady Jaspers have responded accordingly and put themselves on a three-game win streak in a dominating fashion. The offense has taken a big step forward during those games, from averaging 54 points per game over the losing streak, to now 78 points on their winning streak. Head coach Heather Vulin commented on this improvement over the past few games.
“[The] Emphasis that we had going into the season was pace of play, improving our scoring and then just being more disruptive on defense,” Vulin said. “We had a few injuries that kind of slowed us down there during the Christmas break, but we’re slowly getting back healthier and consistently been scoring in the 70s, which has been one of our key points this year.”
This improvement has been fueled by the improvement of the players. Inés Giménez Monserrat spoke about how the team has improved in recent games.
“We started a little slow, but we finally got back on track,” Giménez Moneserat said. “We’re just being more consistent, we need to work on that. I think we’re going on a good track now, and now we’re just looking forward to the next games and keep winning.”
A cornerstone of the Jaspers’ success has been their unselfish style of play. The Lady Jaspers rank among the top teams in the nation in assists per game, an achievement Vulin attributes to their team first mentality.
“If you look, we don’t have anyone dropping 20 [points] every game, but we usually have one person dropping at least 20, and we tend to have a different leading score every game,” Vulin said. “This team doesn’t care who’s the leading scorer. They just want to make sure that we’re putting ourselves in position to win. So the unselfishness has been great.”
The win streak is only the start for what the team wants to accomplish as the season goes on. The team told The Quadrangle they can feel themselves coming together to be the best team possible come mid-March and MAAC tournament play. Nitzan Amar spoke about what she thinks it will take for the team to go far this season.
“We need to be tough,” Amar said. “We are tough. We need to show it to everyone. We need to play together, play with energy and execute our coaches’ [plays]. Put a lot of effort in our scout, and when we execute that like you can see the results.”
With another win at Niagara, MU sits at fourth place in the MAAC. The Lady Jaspers look to extend their win streak with an away game against the Fairfield Stags on Thursday, Jan. 23, who remain undefeated against MAAC competition.