Coming off a 57-49 loss at Butler on Dec. 5 where every Wright State player other than Tay’ler Mingo shot 5-of-43, the rest of the team carried the Raiders to a huge 81-62 win over Lamar Sunday afternoon snapping WSU’s two-game skid.
Wright State had nine days to prepare after a loss that left a sour taste in the mouth of WSU head coach Mike Bradbury.
“I thought we were really good in practice and it showed today,” Bradbury said. “That is encouraging that we had some carryover from practice. We played extremely hard against a talented team that can score.”
“We knew we had a bad game and we worked hard in practice all week,” Wright State guard Courtney Boyd said after scoring a team-high 18 points Sunday. “That led to what we did today.”
Senior center Tay’ler Stanton went a perfect 8-for-8 from the field and grabbed 14 rebounds. Mingo and Breanna Stucke were also in double figures for WSU. After Mingo had to carry the burden of the offense scoring 66 points in the Raiders’ previous two contests, she shot 1-for-10 in Sunday’s contest.
“We can’t be successful if she is scoring half of our points,” Bradbury said.
“In other games, she pretty much scored all (of our points),” Stanton said. “So we knew someone had to step up so all of practice was working on everyone’s strengths.”
Wright State got off to a slow start as Lamar took an early 6-0 lead. After Lamar had an 11-5 lead 3:08 into the game, the Raiders responded with a 12-2 run.
The Cardinals regained the lead with 10:22 left in the first when Dominique Edwards hit a 3 to give Lamar an 18-17 lead. The Raiders responded by going on a 10-0 run powered by Stucke and Boyd 3s. Boyd said hitting a few early 3s helped her confidence in Sunday’s victory.
“Definitely I felt relieved after I made the first one,” Boyd said. “After I hit the first one, I got comfortable and I got going.”
Despite Mingo shooting 0-for-5 from the field in the first, the Raiders held a 43-31 lead.
Wright State started the second half on an 11-2 run to take a 21-point lead. After an Addesha Collins 3, WSU had another 9-0 run to go up 27 with 12:03 remaining.
After Wright State had a pair of contests canceled due to a winter storm, the Raiders will play the first of two added games to the schedule tomorrow evening versus Otterbein. Bradbury said he is looking for the same type of effort from his squad in a contest his squad will have little time to prepare for.
