It's Good to be Home

By Lauren Biggers
Women's Basketball vs. Furman

The Davidson Wildcat women kicked off the 2008-09 home portion of their season with a (tidy) 67-57 win over the Furman Paladins in their Southern Conference opener at Belk Arena Tuesday night.

Leading the way was once again preseason SoCon Player of the Year Merecedes Robinson, who finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and a “She’s got six of their points already” declaration from the other team’s head coach around the 10-minute mark in the first. (Um-hm, coach, (cough, cough) preseason Player of the Year…I'm just saying...)

Sophomore Ashley Lax tossed in 17 points (four from long-range), and junior Alex Thompson finished with 10 points, seven assists, a steal and a pair of nose plugs. (The nose plugs, incidentally, from an injury incurred during a collision in player introductions at South Carolina between Thompson’s nose and Julia Paquette’s elbow. Ah, unlucky.)

Apart from a lone exhibition, it was the first time these Wildcat women have played at Belk this season, so we’re still getting to know each other.

These ‘Cats are still getting to know each other, too, but a pretty challenging non-conference schedule and some serious road environments tend to speed up the process a bit.

“It’s a whole new season,” Alex said of kicking off conference play. “We try to look at preseason and the non-conference games and apply what we learn to the conference season.”

Tuesday night the ‘Cats kicked off the SoCon season with a win over Furman. A good start and a great result in a homecoming of sorts.

“There’s more heart and desire on this team than on any team I’ve been a part of,” Alex offers. “And that’s saying something because I’ve been on some pretty special teams.”

2008-09, part II, is officially under way for the Wildcat 2008-09 women, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them.