DEFENSIVE DOMINANCE
Armada knocks off Yale in battle of unbeatens
Coaches always talk about taking things one game at a time.
That’s true for the most part. However, once in a while there’s a game that catches everyone’s eye the minute the schedule comes out.
Monday’s Blue Water Area Conference game with Yale was one of those games that has been in the back of Armada coach Joe McDevitt’s mind for weeks.
“We’ve been preparing for this from day one,” McDevitt said after the Tigers beat the Bulldogs 40-23 in a battle of undefeated BWAC teams. “We’ve been scouting them from the beginning. There are teams that you’re looking at all the way along. It’s one of those that you circle on the schedule. You know it’s going to be a battle. And it’ll be a battle when we go up there.”
Armada came out like a team that had been waiting all season for the game. The Tigers led 11-4 after the first quarter. Yale didn’t score in the second quarter as Armada increased its lead to 23-4 at halftime.
It was a combination of the Tigers’ tenacious defense and the Bulldogs’ shots from close range refusing to fall.
“We had chances but we couldn’t get them to fall early,” said Yale coach Jason Leonard. “It kind of kept compounding and we couldn’t stop that run they got going in the first half. Give them a lot of credit for that. We fought back in the second half and tried to make it a game.”
Armada was clinging to a 5-4 lead late in the first quarter when a layup by freshman Valeria Ricossa triggered an 18-0 run by the Tigers. Sydney Upton hit consecutive 3-point shots midway through the second quarter.
“I like to shoot from the 3-point line,” Upton said. “When I’m open I shoot it and hopefully, it goes in. As a team when we drive and kick it out it helps to get those open shots.”
Two free throws each by Claire Sniesak and Darrah Mackenzie and Upton’s third triple of the game, on a pass from her sister Ashlyn, might have been the daggers that ended any hopes of a comeback by the Bulldogs, who closed the gap to 15 points with 6 1/2 minutes left in the game.
“We tried to get tempo and dictate the pace and I thought we did a good job in the first half,” McDevitt said. “I thought (Leonard) did a nice job of settling us into their pace in the second half. Every time they made a run we kind of answered it.”
Armada’s success this season hinges on its defense but even McDevitt couldn’t imagine holding a quality opponent to four points in a half.
“I didn’t draw it up that way,” McDevitt said with a smile. “That’s a tribute to our kids and how well they play together.
Our bread and butter is our defense. It starts our offense. We try to make (an opponent’s) life as miserable as we possibly can. We’re not the biggest team so we have to compensate for that with ball pressure.”
Upton said that a good portion of practice time is devoted to defense.
“In practice we really work on our defense, doing our best to double or trap,” she said. “We work as a team switching, helping each other — that’s really been good for us.”
The win was the 10th straight for the Tigers, who dropped their opener to Port Huron 34-31. Armada is 9-0 in the BWAC. Yale, 10-4 overall, is 7-1 in league play.
McDevitt said that this year’s team has been a pleasure to coach.
“That might be the most unselfish team I’ve ever coached,” he said. “Our seniors bring good leadership. We have a great locker room. We have great chemistry and we battle. They don’t get too excited. They don’t get too down. They just work.”
Leonard expects the Bulldogs to bounce back from the defeat.
“We held them to 40 points, that’s not a horrible job defensively but you’ve got to put the ball in the hole,” he said. “We’re going to keep working. The girls have a positive attitude. We’ll keep working to get better and learn from each game.”
Ricossa and Sniesak paced Armada with 11 points apiece and Sydney Upton finished with nine.
Sophomore Sadie Dykstra led Yale with 10 points and Alyssa Barr scored seven.