{"id":41728,"date":"2016-11-16T22:27:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T03:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=41728"},"modified":"2016-11-16T22:27:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T03:27:48","slug":"fgcu-wbb-win-over-fiu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/11\/fgcu-wbb-win-over-fiu\/","title":{"rendered":"FGCU WBB Win Over FIU"},"content":{"rendered":"

By BILL LEVY<\/p>\n

\"\"It can be expected that the FCGU women’s basketball team, which has nine newcomers and only returned one starter, may experience growing pains at times this season.\u00a0Tuesdaynight however was not one of those. Led by Erica\u00a0Nelson’s 21 points, the Eagles (2-1)\u00a0demolished Florida International University\u00a089-42\u00a0at Alico Arena in their home opener. Haley Laughter added 17 points and China Dow\u00a0had 14\u00a0for the Eagles. Also in double\u00a0figures for FGCU was Rosemarie Julien with ten. FGCU’s lone returning starter, Taylor Gradinjan had nine.<\/p>\n

The Eagles, who shot 14 for 39 from 3-point range on the night, raced to an 18-7 first quarter lead and never looked back. After outscoring the Panthers (0-2)\u00a024-12 in the second quarter to go into halftime leading 42-19, it appeared to only be a matter of time before the Eagles sent the 1,679 fans in attendance home happy.<\/p>\n

“We played well today,” FGCU coach Karl Smesko said. “It was fun to watch and I’m sure it was fun to play.”<\/p>\n

Smesko said that was not the case at all in FGCU”s season opening 56-66 loss at Quinnipiac on November 11 or even for parts of their 70-63 win over Hartford\u00a0two days later.<\/p>\n

“I’m really excited about the progress we made,” he said. “This was by far our best effort. They were able to see what happens when we share the ball and work together as a team.”<\/p>\n

For a program that has one of the best home court advantages in the nation, with a 137-11 record at Alico Arena since moving to NCAA Division I in the 2007-08 season, the was the also the newcomers’ first chance to experience\u00a0that atmosphere firsthand.<\/p>\n

“It was overwhelming getting to know the crowd and it can be very intimidating,” Dow said, “but it was fun.”<\/p>\n

Nelson seemed to agree with her teammate.<\/p>\n

“As soon as the ball got tipped off,” she said, “It felt like home.<\/p>\n

NOTES:\u00a0Tuesday\u00a0was also a\u00a0day to celebrate\u00a0the success that both last year’s\u00a0men’s and women’s basketball teams had. Before the game,\u00a0a banner was raised recognizing last year’s women’s NIT runner-up team. At halftime, it was last year’s men’s basketball team’s turn to be honored as athletic director Ken Kavanagh presented members of the\u00a0squad and personnel their rings for reaching the NCAA Tournament. Banners recognizing their ASUN Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance were also raised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BILL LEVY It can be expected that the FCGU women’s basketball team, which has nine newcomers and only returned one starter, may experience growing pains at times this season.\u00a0Tuesdaynight… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}