Friday Features: Youngsters lead UWF women
By Maurice Patton
A quick scan of the
West Florida women’s basketball roster indicates that experience may not be one of the Argonauts’ strongpoints.
Despite playing with eight freshmen and sophomores, though, UWF heads into the Christmas break with an 8-2 record – 5-1 in Gulf South Conference play, including a 3-1 mark on the road.
“It’s always a curse that goes with having a young team: Sometimes you’re going to look brilliant and do spectacular things, and sometimes you’re going to look like the Bad News Bears,” third-year coach Stephanie Lawrence Yelton said. “We’re extremely young this year. It’s a grind, minute by minute, second by second. But we’re happy with the start, the growth, the maturation process.”
One of Yelton’s best players, and perhaps one of the best in the GSC in any class, is freshman Toni Brewer. The 5-10 forward is averaging 14 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, ranking among the conference leaders in both categories, and has already earned league freshman of the week honors on three occasions.
“Toni’s been a blessing to our program,” said Yelton, whose team is the defending GSC titleist. “She’s been able to come out and get a double-double almost every night. She finds ways to score, and we find ourselves running plays for her. We weren’t, but as she’s maturing and getting better, we’re able to run more for her in hopes of getting more productivity out of her.”
Although she doesn’t have the prototypical stature for her position, Brewer has been an anchor for the Argos in the paint.
“The biggest thing with Toni is her rebounding tenacity,” Yelton said. “She’s an undersized post player, but she’s putting up big-kid numbers even though she hasn’t been the biggest kid on the court.”
Out of UWF’s 10 games, Brewer has had double-digit boards in five of those, including a 16-rebound effort against Arkansas-Monticello in just her third collegiate contest.
“You have to have a nose for it, have a knack for it,” Yelton said. “She knows that’s a huge part of her game and she takes pride in it. If you have a kid that takes part of their game and owns it, they’re unstoppable.”
Rebounding and defense wins championships, and thus far, the Argos are leading the league with a plus-10.4 average rebounding margin and allowing a GSC-low 55.6 points per game.
“Our defense is probably the best it’s been since I’ve been here,” Yelton said. “But it’s never good enough for me. Productivity-wise, statistically, it is good."
“We’re trying to build a philosophy, build a certain defensive prowess. We play differently this year than we did with our experienced kids last year. It’s (now) about hunkering down and playing fundamentals. We still have that one or two that have a mental breakdown during a defensive possession. You want to play toward perfection.”
With Brewer -- staking an early claim on conference freshman of the year honors – reigning freshman of the year Katie Bobos (11.7 ppg, 9.4 rpg) and sophomore Kelly Preston (10.1 ppg, 5.0 rpg) up front, UWF is building for this year and beyond.
“We’ve talked about making history,” Yelton said. “We don’t have a truly rich tradition of women’s basketball here at West Florida. We won the first conference title in school history last year. This year, we’ve beaten Lee, which we’d never done. We won at Delta State. They’re trying to make their own history."
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