Lady Canes’ season opens with one loss, one win

sports basketball

After two regular season games, the young Miami Hurricanes Women’s Basketball team has experienced both victory and defeat.

Miami is coming off its first loss of the season, a 4853 road game against Middle Tennessee State University. Previously, the Hurricanes won their season opener over Oakland University by 13 points. The Canes will host the North Florida Ospreys on Friday night and look to improve their record to 2-1.

In its last game, Miami was down by 15 at the half and stormed back. Sophomore Jessica Thomas led the charge, with help from double-digit performances from redshirt junior Michelle Woods and redshirt freshman Nigia Greene. They finished with 17, 11 and 10 points respectively, but couldn’t get the job done.

“It was a train wreck,” Head Coach Katie Meier said after the loss. “We wanted an opportunity to be able to come back from it, regroup at halftime, make some adjustments and get a little bit more energy in the defensive end, because we could at least control that. I didn’t think we were disjointed, particularly on offense the first half, the ball just really didn’t go in and it’s very hard for us to then set our presses and stuff when we’re not scoring.”

Senior Suriya McGuire has been providing some veteran leadership to this young squad. Against Oakland, she had a double-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. Sophomore Adrienne Motley scored a team-high 21 points in the opener, but was held scoreless against Middle Tennessee.

All four true freshman have seen playing time. Freshman Laura Quevedo played 20 and 16 minutes in the first two games. She had three points against Oakland and freshman Khaila Prather had four in 11 minutes.

University of North Florida is also 1-1, but is coming off a win. Sophomore Bailey Florin has been playing incredibly well, setting her career high in scoring in each game this season. First, she had 16 in the loss to Georgia State and then had 19 against Edward Waters. This will be the Osprey’s first road matchup.

Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 21 at the BankUnited Center.