Women's basketball bounce Baden Sports, 86-49 in preseason action

The Washington women's basketball team opened its preseason with an 86-49 win over Baden Sports yesterday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. The Baden Sports team is sponsored by Baden Sports, a sports equipment manufacturing company.

The stat sheet showed the Huskies beating Baden in every major statistical category, but head coach June Daugherty said she still sees plenty of room for improvement.

"It's a start," Daugherty said. "It's a good start, but we have to play a lot harder than we did."

The UW put the win together with a balanced attack. Junior Kayla Burt led the squad, scoring 13 points, but three other Huskies notched the double-digit mark. Sophomores Cameo Hicks and Jill Bell scored 12, while freshman Dominique Banks netted 11.

"We just all look to get each other in the offense," said Bell, who hit two of three three-point attempts.

UW spread the ball around inside and out and finished with 19 assists. The Huskies shot 39 percent from beyond the arc.

"I love this team," Burt said. "I've never been on a team quite like this. Everyone is quick. It's fun to play with people that are going to run with you and just get up and down the floor."

The Huskies came out shooting cold, but were aided by easy buckets. Ten of their first 15 points came from lay-ups. Nine players contributed to 16 steals to help jumpstart the struggling offense.

Daugherty emphasized that for the first effort it was as she expected, but she wants more.

"I think we could have got into a lot more passing lanes than we were able to accomplish in our 94 feet (defense)," Daugherty said. "I think when this team understands that we do have a lot of talented young ladies who can play a lot of minutes, that you better get out there and play as hard as you can play and execute the system at a high level. Then I think we have a chance to be a really good."

A somewhat undersized Husky squad out-rebounded Baden 60-36, and put back a good portion of those boards for 37 second-chance points.

"I thought we went to the boards a lot better on our 'O' boards," Daugherty said. "We might give up size but I think athletically we're quick, so we want to get in there and use our quickness and just be a little more aggressive that way."

Junior Kristen O'Neill led the Huskies with 10 rebounds.

As a pre-season game, Burt said she was not concerned with what happened as much as she was with just getting it out of the way.

"It's not a real game, but it is a game," she said. "It's nice to get the dust off and just go out there and display things that we've been working on against another team."

The Huskies next game is another exhibition at home on Nov. 8 against Vanguard University. Daugherty emphasized that every player needs to stay consistent to be successful.

"I think we have the opportunity to be a lot deeper this year," she said. "Before today, coming into this game, no one had won their spot. We're just looking for that consistency."