CC looks to stay hot

The No. 6 Chipola Lady Indians will look to make it seven consecutive wins this weekend in Ocala at the Florida JUCO Women’s Shootout.

The Lady Indians, who have not lost since a 77-72 defeat to top-ranked Jefferson College Nov. 18, take on Central Florida tonight and Broward on Saturday.

Tonight will be the first game for Chipola since Nov. 25, when the Lady Indians defeated St. Petersburg 62-38 in a game that concluded a stretch of five games in eight days.

Chipola coach David Lane said the holiday break has been a blessing for his team.

“We were pretty banged up by that stretch,” the coach said. “Now we’ve had 10 days off between games, so we got a chance to look back and see what we need to focus on. I hope it will help us against Central Florida.

“It’s going to be tough game, so we want to get the rust off as soon as possible. It’s at their place and they’re always a difficult team to play at home, so it should be a good test for us.”

Chipola is familiar with Central Florida, as the two teams played a preseason scrimmage earlier this year.

In that scrimmage, Central Florida led by 11 points in the final three minutes of the game before the Lady Indians, who were without leading scorer Latoya
Williams, rallied back to force the game into overtime and eventually win.

“(Central Florida) plays a lot of guards and not a lot of bigs,” Lane said. “But they play a lot of kids who are very similar, so they can create some match-up problems for you if you’re not prepared for it.”

The problem Central Florida will face tonight is the same most guard-heavy teams will encounter against Chipola: a dominant Lady Indians front line.

Chipola is outrebounding opponents this season by an average of 20 rebounds per game, led by Williams’ 10.2 per game.

Lenita Sanford, Georgian Williams, Marnesha Hall and Kikwiki Mamuku join her to form a deep and tall front court that can punish smaller opposition, something Lane hopes will happen tonight.

“We should,” the coach said. “That’s our strength. But we also have great guards who can match up with them as well. That’s the positive we have going for us this year with our depth. We can match up with guard teams and post teams.”

Lane, who said his team was pretty healthy right now, said he wouldn’t know as much about Broward until watching them play tonight before the Chipola game.

Broward was a late replacement for Hillsborough, which couldn’t make the trip.
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The Lady Indians jumped two spots in the national poll, moving up from No. 8 to No. 6.

That gives the Panhandle Conference three teams ranked in the top seven.

Gulf Coast (10-0) is ranked third, while Pensacola (11-0) is ranked seventh.

Northwest Florida State (9-0), ranked No. 13, gives the Panhandle four teams in the national rankings.

“I think that says a lot about the talent we have this year in the conference,” Lane said of the rankings. “As far as our ranking goes, I think it will matter a lot more when (Panhandle teams) start playing each other. The polls right now are a lot more about the respect the rest of the country has for our conference.”