UMass women’s basketball: Pair of first half runs propel Minutewomen past La Salle, 82-66 (PHOTOS)
Published: 01-15-2025 4:52 PM |
AMHERST — On Field Trip Day at the Mullins Center, the UMass women’s basketball team gave the kids plenty to cheer for in its 82-66 win over La Salle on Wednesday.
More than 2,000 students from 19 different schools were on hand to watch the Minutewomen ease past the Explorers. UMass improved to 9-8 and 4-2 in Atlantic-10 competition following its second straight win on Wednesday.
“I think it’s really motivating to be able to play in front of so many little kids,” Minutewomen senior Stefanie Kulesza said. “I remember when I was younger I used to look up to Elena Delle Donne and Lauren Carra and they played at the University of Delaware, when I was younger. I really looked up to them and I really wanted to play like them, so to be able to do that for more kids and more little girls here makes me really happy.”
Kulesza’s extra motivation translated on the score sheet for UMass as the Wilmington, Delaware, native scored 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
Junior Megan Olbrys was the standout of the contest for the Minutewomen though, setting a new career-high in points scored with 22. Both Kulesza and Olbrys had 16 points in the first half alone.
“I think being leaders out there, having teammates trust us, we had about 20 assists and just sharing the ball like that, our teammates just get a sense of what’s happening during the game,” Olbrys said. “[Kulesza] and I finishing just honestly helping the team.”
UMass used the energy inside the building to build big leads early. The Minutewomen went on a 17-0 run after La Salle scored the first five points in the game, then followed it up with an 18-0 run in the second quarter to hold a 51-28 advantage at the halfway point.
“We wanted to really set a tone from the start,” UMass head coach Mike Leflar said. “[We] talked about it before our game in Olean against St. Bonaventure. The teams that we’re playing twice, game one has got to be us setting a tone, being the aggressor. We definitely did that at St. Bonnies and then for us to step up and do it again today was great.”
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Freshman Yahmani McKayle secured 12 points and three steals to round out the top three Minutewomen scorers.
As a team, UMass shot 48 percent from the floor, while the Explorers only made 38 percent of their shots. The hosts led in just about every tracked statistic, including points in the paint. The Minutewomen out-muscled La Salle around the basket to finish with 44 points in the paint compared to 38 from the visitors.
“Again, I think our team executed the game plan and more than the game plan was just the aggressiveness,” Leflar said. “I was really happy with the way we shared the ball, got to the line a lot, and had a lot of attempts in the paint. I think we had like 39 layup attempts in the game and 24 in the first half. We just want to keep getting the easiest shots we can and then continue working on knocking them down.”
Wednesday’s victory puts the Minutewomen one win shy of doubling their win-total from last season. UMass only won five games a season ago, and weren’t expected to improve all that much this year, judged by the A-10 Preseason Poll that had the Minutewomen projected to finish 13th out of 15 total teams.
UMass moved to fifth in the A-10 after Wednesday’s triumph.
“Obviously, Olbrys is a huge addition,” Explorers head coach Mountain MacGillivray said on the Minutewomen’s improvements. “She comes in and she’s a super competitor, she’s a higher-level athlete, but then Kulesza’s game has grown and Chinenye [Odenigbo]’s game has really grown [too].”
With some stiff competition upcoming for UMass, starting with Saint Joseph’s at noon on Saturday, it appears to be clicking at a key point during the conference slate.
“I think something that’s really motivating is every single time after a game and into practice we usually have some things that we want to focus on and it seems like every single time we have a set list of things to focus on, we go out the next game and do it amazing[ly],” Kulesza said.