Women's Basketball wins eleventh in a row!

December 16, 2006    KVCC (78) vs. Kankakee C. C.(59) at Kankakee, IL

       Visiting Kankakee had not been a pleasant task in the past for the 4th ranked Lady Cougars, but this time was different. As has been their M.O. of late, they jumped off to an early lead and never looked back.  "We had never won in their gym." Explained Cougar coach, Ron Welch. "We have played some very good games and gotten beat in that facility, but I think this team took it upon themselves to 'fix' that."  The Cougars ran out to a 44-23 halftime lead.
       Three Cougars were in double figures with Charity Knight's 17 leading the way.  Kendra Kutz added 12 - 10 in the second half after sitting out most of the first half with foul trouble - and point guard Amber Peters contributed a double double with 10 points in addition to her 10 assists. Jealyn Foston, who is rapidly returning to the aggressive, dominant play that has marked her career, had nine points and 7 rebounds and Betsey Dennis chipped in 8 points.
       The Cougars dominated the boards to the tune of a 46-30 margin and were again led by 6'2" sophomore Kim Gear with 13 boards.  In addition to Foston's 7 boards, sophomore post Kate Whittaker came off the bench to add a solid six rebound effort.  Gear also added 3 big blocks.
      "We did a lot of things right against a team that shoots it very well." said Welch after the game.  "We knew we couldn't give them open jumpers and I thought we did a nice job of challenging shots, but not fouling.  I really thought that Foston gave us a tremendous boost coming off the bench when Kendra got into foul trouble early. What a luxury for a coach to have that type of player to go to.  She'd be starting for any team in the conference and we certainly will find more minutes for her if she continues to play like that."      
       While Welch was pleased with the over-all play of his team there was one glaring area that has to be better.  "We shot about 86.7% for the game."  said a 'tongue-in-cheek' Welch.  "53.4 percent from the floor and 33.3 percent from the free throw line!"  The Cougars were 9/27 from the charity stripe (2-14 in the first half).  "This is a better free throw shooting team than that so I'm not real concerned about it, but if we don't fix it it will come back to haunt us at some point.  There are several league teams that if we do that against them, they will beat us.  We played well today, but the free throw shooting left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth about the game so we'll go back to work on the 27th and fix it!"
       The Cavaliers made it interesting in the second half, scoring the first six points of the half on two long range bombs, but it was Kutz' turn to provide the energy and plays and the Cougars rebuilt the lead to take a 55-41 lead and pretty much matched the rallying home team basket for basket for the balance of the half.  "I was proud of the way the kids accepted the challenge."  said Welch.  "We showed a lot of character in a hostile environment and I think these types of game will pay dividends in the future.  We do need to come out of the locker room with more intensity in the second half - no matter what the situation is."

         League play starts on Wednesday January 3rd with the Glen Oaks Vikings visiting Cougar Arena at 5:30 pm