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Victory Boosts LOL's Confidence

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By CRISTINA LEDRA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 12, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - With a 35-31 win against rival Wesley Chapel on Thursday night, Land O' Lakes earned not only its 19th win of the season but also the confidence that it could beat the Wildcats, who had handed the Gators their only loss this year.

There were many reasons this was an important victory for the Gators.

The timing was good because there are only a handful of games left in the regular season before the district tournament. The Gators beat Wesley Chapel for the first time in four years, so any mental hang-ups they may have had about playing the Wildcats are gone. And someone other than Kayli Keough led the team in scoring.

"You try to stop one, and we've got multiple scoring threats," Land O' Lakes coach Laurie Pacholke said. "Meghan Keough did a great job of handling the ball under pressure. I can't say enough about my freshmen. They stepped up. You put two freshmen Meghan Keough and Kaitlynn Pacholke in a major situation like that and I think they outshined the seniors tonight. It was pretty big for us."
Kayli Keough was held to eight points in part because of the defensive play of Wesley Chapel's Janelle Mills, who posed a physical threat that the elder Keough doesn't normally face.

"They just played a lot of on-ball pressure, and with Janelle, when's she got somebody her same size, she has to create a lot more space for herself and they didn't allow her to do that," Laurie Pacholke said. "You have to hand it to them. Wesley Chapel coach Warren Jones is a great coach and they're a great team and they did what they needed to do defensively. It just came down to free throws and we came out on top."

Both teams have been stressing strength on defense, and in a 35-31 game, both teams proved that emphasis has been working.

Neither team's players were able to get a lot of clean shots. Many were off-balance and didn't go in.

For the Wildcats, who have dropped three games in a row, the loss exposed what they need to work on to make a deep run in the postseason.

"I really didn't get what I wanted," Jones said. "I wanted a more focused game. It was kind of helter-skelter for a while. We played good defense, but we let them get a lot of second-chance points and there were a lot of balls we just couldn't grab. They beat us to the loose balls and they capitalized. Those mistakes, and I think they had nine offensive rebounds in the first quarter, that'll kill you."

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