WKU Women’s Basketball earns its first victory of the season over Miami (OH) 91-55, while Meredith makes season debut

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - WKU Women’s Basketball earned its first win of the 2022-23 season after defeating Miami (OH) 91-55.

“I felt like tonight we took a little bit of a step forward in calming down and just being who we are in practice,” head coach Greg Collins said. “So as we get this experience and get a little settled the pace won’t slow down, the intensity won’t slow but the game will slow down for us and that’s kind of what we’re trying to get to.”

Not only was this the first win of the season for the Lady Toppers but Mya Meredith returned to the court after having a season-ending knee injury last year. In 20 minutes of action, the star had five points and five rebounds.

Aaliyah Pitts led the way with 19 points and five rebounds on 7-of-10 shooting. Macey Blevins had 14 points. And Jaylin foster had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

After the first quarter, WKU had a one point lead but once the second came it was all she wrote. The lady toppers started applying major pressure on the RedHawks which led to easy turnovers and buckets.

The tops created 18 first half turnovers that turned into 21 points.

“We definitely have been working on in practice, just getting up on the ball especially in the press, early up and just forcing those turnovers early on so I think we did pretty well with that tonight,” Pitts said.

It didn’t get any easier for Miami in the second half as WKU applied the full-court press right away causing more turnovers and leading to easy points. WKU scored 33 points in the third while holding Miami to 13.

“Definitely, defense makes the offense so once we got that going the points just kept coming the whole time,” freshman guard Josie Gilvin said.

There were a total of 47 fouls called in this game but that didn’t stop the Lady Toppers from creating havoc on the court, causing a total of 35 Redhawk turnovers that lead to 41 points.

WKU gets a thanksgiving break before heading to Cornell on Friday at noon. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.

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