Three days of rest in exchange for putting everything on the line for 40 minutes.
That was the deal that the Ohio coaching staff offered the Bobcats before Saturday's game against Ball State, and it seemed like a good trade to forward Domenica Silva.
I don't think there's anything that I've said as a coach that got to her the way this got to her
coach Sylvia Crawley said. She likes to sleep in so she loved the sound of rest.
While Silva only had six points in Ohio's 77-66 road upset of the Cardinals, the Bobcats' only senior brought her experience to the floor with 4:51 left in the game to replace guard Rachel Frederick, who had picked up her fourth foul.
Ohio was leading 57-55, and Silva ' the lowest free throw percentage shooter among the regular starters at 64 percent ' then knocked down two to send the Bobcats on a 10-0 run for the win.
Silva's effectiveness at the charity stripe was part of a larger trend. Ohio made 23-of-27 free throws, compared to Ball State's 15-of-25 ' 3-of-11 in the first half.
They handled (the pressure) great Frederick said of her teammates. The atmosphere there was pretty intense with their fans screaming stupid little lines to distract them. But they just focused on the shot and put the ball in the hoop.
But the 'Cats (11-9, 4-4 Mid-American Conference) had been working on pressure free throws in practice.
If they make a certain percentage
they get water. If not
they run
Crawley said. They control how long practices go now. It's paying off for us right now.
Small steps
In the past Ohio has struggled to play consistently for an entire game, seeing Northern Illinois erase a 17-point Bobcat lead a week ago.
At Ball State, however, Ohio tried focusing on four minutes at a time, from timeout to timeout.
That really works for our players to break the game up into segments
Crawley said. This is a young team
and they learn by experience. We won this game because of our Northern Illinois game last week.
Even when the Cardinals were up by their largest margin of seven points, the Bobcats were never out of it, as 24 lead changes and nine tied scores would indicate.
Probably out of all the games we've played this year
this has been the one where we put together a full
40-minute game
guard Lauren Kohn said.
But did the top team in the MAC West overlook Ohio?
It's hard to tell if they did or not
