The Wright State women’s basketball team enjoyed two exhibition victories this past week against Indianapolis and Cedarville, but those victories came at a significant cost.
Junior starter Courtney Boyd tore her ACL Sunday afternoon against local foe Cedarville and is likely out for the entire season.
Boyd averaged 9.8 points per game for the Raiders a season ago and provided an outside shooting threat for a WSU team who will now look for another scoring option to fill her place.
“Courtney will be missed,” Head Coach Mike Bradbury said. “She has a lot of experience, but you move on from it. Someone has got to step up and take her spot.”
A possible replacement for Boyd could be sophomore Abby Jump, a three-point specialist who scored 12 points against Cedarville on 4-7 shooting from beyond the arc.
“With Courtney out, that injury may allow her to play some more,” Bradbury said. “She (Abby) provides some outside shooting that we miss sometimes.”
The injury is similar to one WSU faced last season when Mylan Woods went down early in the year and was unable to participate. But that injury didn’t prevent WSU from having a winning season, as the team finished with a record of 21-13.
“We recovered fine last year and hopefully we’ll do it again this year,” Bradbury said.
WSU did manage two close victories in both exhibition games, defeating Indianapolis by nine and Cedarville by six. The games won’t count in the win column, but the experience gained from playing close games could prove to be valuable in the regular season.
“We played the two best teams that we could get to play us,” Bradbury said. “That’s why we played them so that we could be tested.”
Preseason Horizon League Player of the Year Kim Demmings had a sub-par shooting night by her standards Thursday against Indianapolis by going 8-23 from the field. Despite the inconsistent shooting, Demmings still recorded a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Demmings’s encore performance Sunday included 20 points in only 27 minutes.
Demmings remains confident as Friday’s season opener against Southeast Missouri approaches.
“I know my game and I just needed to settle in and stop forcing it,” Demmings said. “I’m just getting the feel of the up-tempo style of play again.”
As the team searches for ways to improve, Bradbury cited concentration and a lack of focus as two concerns from the two exhibition games.
“Our biggest thing is being able to concentrate for long periods of time,” Bradbury said.
Bradbury also cited rebounding as an area the team is focusing on in practice, which is expected to be a weakness without graduated players Molly Fox and Shaunda Sandifer, who together amassed more than 20 rebounds per game for the Raiders.“Rebounding is a concern,” Bradbury said. “We’ve got the rebound better and play a little harder.”
