The Collegian

Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: Sports

After beating Gannon University and Mercyhurst College for the second time last week, the Hillsdale women's basketball team is now first in the GLIAC with an overall record of 19-3, 12-2 in GLIAC, the first division title in five years.

The women defeated Mercyhurst Saturday 90-55 and Gannon Thursday 83-47.

Against Mercyhurst, every player on the roster made at least two points, Cezat led the team with 21 points.

Senior captain Julie Slot said the team did a good job of scoring, especially sophomore Janay Miller. Cezat was honored with GLIAC Player of the Week for the fourth week in a row.

"Janay really came into the offence for us," she said. "Everybody got onto a roll."

Last week, head coach Claudette Charney said she wanted to see more people on the team scoring. After the Mercyhurst game, she did.

"That is not something you set out to do," she said. "We got production from our bench not just from a scoring standpoint but also a defensive standpoint. We hope that we can continue to do that kind of thing."

Charney said the first unit did a great job scoring and enabling her to play more players throughout the game.

The Chargers also beat Gannon for the second time, handing the Golden Knights their worst loss since 1998.

"We did a good job stopping their shooters," Slot said. "Basically what we do going into every game is to stop their big players."

Slot said Gannon's top post tore her ACL with five minutes left in the game.

"It's unfortunate for them," she said. "She was their lead scorer."

Charney said neither Gannon nor Mercyhurst did anything special to try and stop Cezat, although teams usually always try to double team her.

Tonight the Chargers host Ferris State University at 6:30. Ferris recently beat No. 2 ranked Michigan Technological University.

"The fact that they just beat Michigan Tech says something," Charney said. "They're a very good team. They have a challenging post player - it's going to be a battle of the two best post players in the league. They are tough to defend."

Sophomore Brooke Knight, a guard, said Ferris forward Rachel Folcik is currently the No. 2 scorer in the GLIAC and Cezat is No. 1. Folcik was chosen as the GLIAC's preseason player of the year.

"We've got to win so we can hold GLIAC," Knight said.

Knight said it's hard to focus on each upcoming game close to the end of the season.
"You do look forward to the GLIAC tournament, but you can't just forward too much," she said.

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