Union Splits: Women’s ‘D’ crushes in first half

Virginia Union point guard Pria Stellmacher slowly picked herself up off the hardwood after being called for traveling on a hop that took one too many steps.

Her team trailed Virginia Commonwealth 24-6 and hadn’t made a shot from the floor in almost 10 minutes. Stellmacher’s six misses didn’t help.

VCU turned Union’s air balls and turnovers into breakaway opportunities and buried the Panthers with a 15-1 run, leaving VUU head coach Moses Golatt with a 23-point halftime deficit he never saw coming.

“We figured we’d have trouble the first 10 minutes,” said Golatt in his 14th season as Panthers head coach. “We didn’t figure it’d be the whole first half.”

The Rams limited the Panthers to just 5-of-32 shooting in the first half, scoring 11 points on Union’s 11 turnovers in the half and dominated the Panthers 68-57 in their first exhibition of the season.

“I like to think it was because of our defense,” said Rams head coach Beth Cunningham, “but both teams had a lot of nervousness. It was probably a little of both.”

While the Rams rotated eight players with game experience from last season and worked in a few newcomers, Golatt was trying to get six new players acquainted with his coaching system.

He said that in the few days of practice before their exhibition opener “there was just not enough time to get this team ready for this caliber play.”

VCU’s size and experience made it hard for the Panthers to match up at most positions, but one of Golatt’s bigger matchup problems came in the form of 6-8 center Kristina Cesnaviciute.

“It’s hard to play a 6-8 girl with a 6-1 girl,” Golatt said.

Cesnaviciute came off the bench and grabbed eight rebounds while leading the Rams in scoring with 14 points. The career 48-percent free-throw shooter did most of her damage from the charity stripe where she was 10 of 12, knocking down her first nine.

“I thought she played really aggressively,” Cunningham said of the senior center.

The Rams pulled down 46 rebounds as a team, and forward Lauren Hogan came down with 14 of her 17 boards in the first half. The senior scored nine points on 3-of-9 shooting in her first game since having tissues in her knee repaired over the summer.

The Panthers outscored the Rams 42-30 in the second half. Stellmacher, a preseason CIAA first-teamer, finished with 17 points and sophomore guard Latoya Green came off the bench and drained all three of her shots from beyond the arc, finishing with 15 points.

“That’s because we were running our system,” Golatt said.

It may have also been because VCU worked in almost everyone on the roster. The Rams bench scored 33 points and all but one player got on the board for the Rams, who were picked to finish third in the CAA.

“That’s the good thing about playing an exhibition,” Cunningham said. “You get to find out things you need to work on.”

VCU, which stole a first-place vote away from Old Dominion, has one more exhibition against Team Concept on Nov. 11 before starting its season with a road game against Belmont on Nov. 20.

“They’re a veteran team,” Golatt said of the Rams. “VCU’s going to be a solid team.”

As for his Panthers, Golatt said, “We’ve still got work to do.”