After a blowout loss to Purdue, Ball State Women’s Basketball (1-1 0-0 MAC), led by junior guard Jasmin Samz, was able to attain its first victory in a back-and-forth shootout against Cleveland State (1-2 0-0 Horizon) Sunday, 67-62.
In just a few minutes after the tip-off, Samz came out the gate on fire, as she scored nine points on 4-5 shooting in the first quarter.
“Sometimes the ball goes in the rim, sometimes it doesn’t and you just stay confident and think how can I get the ball back on defense,” Samz said. “I put up all these shots in the summer, so then the ball will eventually fall.”
Samz said that she attempts to find different ways to distribute the ball to her teammates and it showed today on the court. She was able to use her on-ball skills to create her own shot off-the-dribble by: attacking the rim and knocking down pull-up jumpers from the mid-range area. It helped open-up shots for the rest of Cardinals because the defense was forced to help on the drive. Samz finished with four assists.
“I thought she ran the team just like you would expect a fourth year junior would run it,” head coach Brady Sallee said. “She was in control and the pace went how she wanted it to. She isn’t going to worry about where you put her, unless it’s on the bench. She just wanted to do whatever she had to do and next game she might have to do it from a different spot.”
Ball State faced its biggest deficit in the fourth quarter when Cleveland State went on a 13-4 run giving them a 60-52 lead. However, the Cardinals answered with a 12-2 run after two three-pointers from Samz and a couple buckets from freshman forward Thelma Dis Agustsdottir. They both scored seven points in the fourth quarter to help the Cardinals take the lead back and go on and win the game.
“We practice it non-stop [late-game situations]” Samz said. “it worked really well for us today…and Brady had us in the right position to play and it ended up that we were on the right side of the scoreboard tonight.”
Samz led all scorers finishing with 18 points shooting a nearly perfect 7-10 from the field and knocking down 3-5, 3-point shots, which the team likes to see following her cold night against Purdue where she shot 1-9 from the field and only scored three points.
“She played like a savvy veteran should and I was proud of her out there,” Sallee said. “She’s going to be that jack-of-all trades.”
The Cardinals as a team finished the day shooting 42.4 percent from the field and 50 percent from behind the arc.
Contact Daric Clemens with any comments at diclemens@bsu.edu or on Twitter @DClemens
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