Herd Women Down Central Michigan 79-69
by Grant TraylorHuntington News Network Sportswriter
Huntington (HNN) — The Marshall women’s basketball team won its fifth straight game Wednesday night, Jan. 26, 2005 by defeating Central Michigan 79-69 at the Cam Henderson Center.
Marshall (10-7, 4-2 Mid-American Conference) placed four players in double figures against the Chippewas as Marshall won to stay on top of the Mid-American Conference’s East division.
“We’ve been doing it with our team effort, and we’ve had a lot of people step up,” Marshall Coach Royce Chadwick said. “We have about seven go-to girls and we have special plays for everybody.”
Crystal Champion, the reigning MAC East player of the week, and Reshundra Smiley led Marshall’s attack with 16 points on the evening.
Kim Griffin scored 15 while Modupe Ishola came off the bench to score 14 points and grab a team-leading nine rebounds.
Casey Manning led Central Michigan (7-10, 1-5 Mid-American Conference) with 15 points on the night including Central Michigan’s last eight in the contest.
Sharonda Hurd had a double-double for the Chippewas, scoring 12 points and grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds. Dana Westover also chipped in 11 points.
Marshall led wire-to-wire in the contest and Griffin gave Marshall its biggest lead at 76-56 with 2:47 to play on a reverse lay-up. Marshall then substituted to give its younger players an opportunity for some experience.
Griffin probably had her best game of the season as she filled the stat sheet. In addition to her 15 points, she had eight assists, four rebounds and a pair of steals. Still, the most important stat to her was the number 10, the team’s number of wins now.
“I’ll just do whatever it takes for the team to win. Points. Steals. Rebounds. Anything,” Griffin said. “The stats don’t matter to me. I just want to win.”
Consecutive three-pointers by Smiley boosted the Thundering Herd back to a 61-45 lead with 8:51 remaining after Central Michigan had battled to keep the lead around 10 midway through the second half.
Central Michigan got its closest at the 15:30 mark when Hurd scored to cut Marshall’s lead to 44-35, but the Chippewas would not get any closer during the contest.
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