The UH women’s basketball team started the season exactly the way it wanted to.
The Cougars (2-0) defeated Gardner-Webb 79-58 on Saturday and topped Southeastern Louisiana 73-58 on Friday to sweep their weekend opponents.
The Cougars gave a total team effort in their win over Gardner-Webb (0-1). Five Cougars scored in double-digit figures, led by sophomore center Cobilyn Hill’s 18 points.
"Cobilyn’s improvement can be seen every day," UH head coach Joe Curl said. "Our depth really helped us today."
Sophomore guard Brittney Scott, who scored 17 points, agrees the Cougars’ depth is a great weapon.
"We’re very versatile," Scott said. "Everybody can score."
The Cougars started the contest on a 16-4 run and maintained the lead throughout the game, but the Bulldogs did not go down without a fight.
Junior forward Laura Povilonyte hit a 3-pointer to cut Houston’s lead to 8 with 6:13 left in the game.
The Cougars responded by tightening their defense and ended the game on a 16-3 run.
"I thought our kids really responded well," Curl said. "(After the Bulldogs cut the lead to 8) they started grinding, and all of a sudden it was a 20-point game."
Gardner-Webb’s zone defense created problems for the Cougars’ offense. At times, UH struggled to move the ball and score on the Bulldogs.
"I take more blame for that than the kids," Curl said. "We’ve seen more zone (this weekend) than we’ve seen in the last couple of years because of our quickness. The zone made us a little stagnate. We have to work on it more in practice to develop a better rhythm against it."
Against Southeastern Louisiana (0-1), the Cougars had another hot start, beginning the game on a 23-5 run.
Sophomore forward Courtney Taylor, who led the Cougars with 17 points and 10 rebounds, said the fast start was a key to victory.
"Coach told us that they were one of the teams you had to bury early," Taylor said.
The Cougars played relentless pressure defense for most of the game, which led to 24 Lion turnovers. Houston also held Southeastern Louisiana to 31.6 percent shooting.
"I think the defense is what won us the game, and our heart and chemistry were also right there with us," Curl said. "We don’t win this game without great pressure defense. It’s nice to look up and see that we held them in the ’50s."
The Cougars worked with each other well to shut down the Lions’ star player, senior forward Kristy Carlin. Although Carlin led the Lions with 14 points, she was held to 6-18 shooting thanks to a great defensive performance from Taylor and teammates.
"We watched film on her and (assistant) coach (Wade) Scott told me she was the key to the whole game," Taylor said. "I had to maintain her, keep her off the boards and keep her from scoring."
The referees were quite active, calling 32 fouls in the first 26 minutes. The tight officiating allowed the Lions to stay within shouting distance.
"I don’t think we adjusted to the officiating," Curl said. "We got called for too many hand-checking fouls."
Freshman guard Roxana Button added 17 points in the victory, but she also ran into foul trouble, which forced her to sit for most of the second half.
"We had great intensity on defense, but we have to adjust to the refs better," Button said.
The Cougars look to extend their win streak to three when they hit the road to take on Oregon State in Corvallis, Ore. at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
