The APU women’s basketball team outscored the Academy of Art by 47 points in their conference opener
Azusa Pacific’s women’s basketball showed no mercy on the court against the Academy of Art in their PacWest conference opener at the Felix Event Center, beating the Urban Knights by a score of 89-42 on Thursday.
This was APU’s largest margin of victory this season. The win helped the 17th-ranked Cougars improve to an overall record of 10-1.
“We talk about getting better in every practice and every game. That’s our goal for every game—play our hardest and be our best,” head coach T.J. Hardeman said. “We played hard, we didn’t shoot that great, but we got enough shots and had 24 assists off of 31 shots, so we were finding each other, which was nice to see.”
It took APU’s offense a little while to warm up, but the defense kept the Urban Knights from forming any rhythm as the Cougars led 18-7 at the end of the first quarter. In the second, the Cougars put up 25 points to lead 43-20 by halftime.
In the second half, the Cougars hit 23 points in both the third and fourth quarters, racking up the points and even leading the Urban Knights by as much as 50 points late in the game. The deficit was too much for the Academy of Art to handle, as they could not score more than 13 points in a quarter, leading to their eventual 47 point defeat.
Sophomore guard Rachel Bozlee stole the show for the Cougars, scoring both a career-high 24 points—all of which came from beyond the arc. Bozlee tied a school record for the Cougars, hitting eight three-pointers in today’s game.
According to Bozlee, she didn’t fully understand how it all happened, but she simply got into a rhythm, and her team was able to recognize that.
“I don’t even know [how the rhythm started],” Bozlee said. “Just the thrill of the whole game—once I hit one [shot], I wanted more and more, my team wanted me to hit more, and they did a great job at finding me and getting me open.”
Both Hardeman and Bozlee’s teammates knew that they had to give her the ball in this game as one of their top shooters.
“[Bozlee] was on fire tonight. We got her the ball about three times after she drilled a few shots,” Hardeman said.
Senior guard Abbigail Goodsell expressed how proud she was of Bozlee’s performance and improvement since last season.
“She worked so hard over the summer with her shot, her form, her agility and her speed, and it showed,” Goodsell said. “Her shooting and having games like this—we need that because it brings so much energy to the team; it boosts both her confidence and our confidence overall as a shooting team. She was amazing.”
Goodsell scored 14 points in the first 20 minutes of play for the Cougars, before heading to the bench for the majority of the second half and finishing second on the team with 17 points on the night. She contributes the team’s overall defensive play to their success in the night’s win.
“Our defense really shapes our offense and when we’re aggressive and we get steals, easy layups and kick-outs, and are able to both rotate and move the ball really helps us too on offense,” Goodsell said.
The Cougars forced a total of 32 turnovers, which included 20 steals and led to 28 points, compared to seven forced turnovers from the Urban Knights.
Most of the team’s starters were taken out in the third quarter, yet the Cougars bench was just as aggressive, scoring a total of 54 points on the night.
“The fact that we are so deep, we are going to play four quarters and come after it every time. That’s good for us and makes it harder on other teams,” Hardeman said. “Our bench is very strong—we easily have eight to nine players who can start. They were ready to come off and do what they needed to do, so it was nice to see them prepared and ready to go.”
The Cougars plan to use this momentum going into Saturday’s matchup against Point Loma in the Felix Event Center at 1 p.m. The Sea Lions, who are currently 5-2, will look to be solid opponent for APU this year; the Cougars look forward to the competition.
“We’re super excited for it. Our energy is great right now. We have this momentum going and we’re going to take that into Saturday,” Goodsell said.