Women's Basketball uses exhibition to get acclimated
Oct. 31, 2012
Dalton Pool, Texas Media Relations AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas Longhorns beat Incarnate Ward 77-33 Tuesday night at the Frank Erwin Center in their first and only exhibition game this season. The game, which doesn’t count toward official season results, was scheduled for the purpose of acclimating the team (especially its seven newcomers) to a game-like setting, and to attempt to get out all jitters before UT travels to Daytona Beach, Fla., to take on St. Johns in the WBI Tip Off Classic on Nov. 9. “I was so nervous,” said 6-foot 7-inch freshman Imani McGee-Stafford. “It’s really frustrating because I have been doing so much better in practice and then I came out here. But it was good it was an exhibition game and I was hopefully able to get all the nerves out.” McGee-Stafford, who can be her toughest critic, finished the game with six points and 12 rebounds in just 21 minutes of play. Her size and athleticism make her a promising player for the Longhorns. Also making their first appearances in the orange and white were freshmen Empress Davenport and Celina Rodrigo, redshirt-freshman Brady Sanders, junior-transfers Ashley Roberts and Gigi Mazionyte, and fifth-year senior Nadia Taylor who played for the Texas Softball team under head coach Connie Clark the past four years.
The newcomers were led by Mazionyte who had 12 points in 23 minutes. Mazionyte, who transferred to Texas from Weatherford College, is originally from Palanga, Lithuania. Taylor came on for the final four minutes and drew cheers from the Longhorn faithful as she stole the ball and then scored on a break away layup for her first basket. She then proceeded to add two more points after getting open under the basket off an inbound play. Taylor received either first or second team Big 12 honors for softball in each of her first four years at UT, and is in the all-time top 10 in numerous Longhorn batting records. “Nadia came in and got a couple quick buckets and an assist,” McGee-Stafford said. “It was great. She played hard and everybody was really excited to get her in the game. Everyone really stepped up and almost everybody scored. It was a lot of fun.” Cokie Reed who is the only senior that has been with the team the past four years is looked upon for leadership. Head coach Karen Aston even refers to her as the “mother hen”. “She does a great job of sort of being the team mom at this point because we're so young, and then on top of that working on herself and getting comfortable with the system,” said Aston. “I think she knows that we're going to throw the ball inside and that she has a situation where she's going to touch the basketball a lot.” Reed finished with 13 points and was six of seven from the field. “I thought it was a great start-up game for us,” said Reed. “Just to have the lights on and be in front of the fans, it was a lot of fun and I thought we played really hard.” |
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