Elon began the game where they left off on Jan. 17 in its win against Stony Brook with a heavy reliance on its transition offense, the aspect of its offense that has found some of the most success this season. Elon got its first points of the game this way after redshirt sophomore Raven Preston snatched the ball away from Hofstra and, through a couple of passes, was able to get it to sophomore Maraja Pass for a layup.
Preston said the reliance of transition offense to start the game favored them.
“We played fast paced in practice, so it's not really anything new to us,” Preston said. “Just got our legs warmed up for the game.”
The opening minutes saw a fast paced game with lots of turnovers. The sloppy play that resulted in turnovers caused both teams to rely on their transition offenses to score. It was a tightly contested first quarter and neither team pulled away by more than a couple of points, partly due to the rebound battle being dead even between Elon and Hofstra.
Despite a strong 55% field goal percentage in the first quarter, Hofstra struggled to maintain control of the ball early on as they turned the ball over four times in the first four minutes. By the end of the first quarter, both teams had six or more turnovers.
Hofstra got its offense more organized in the second quarter and greatly reduced the number of turnovers while applying more pressure on defense as they employed a press defense, by applying pressure to Elon’s offense throughout the entire court.
Elon managed to begin accumulating a more comfortable lead in the second quarter. The Phoenix got hot from beyond the arc, finishing the half with a 57% 3-point percentage. Preston led the offensive effort and scored 10 first half points. She also had four rebounds. It was an explosive performance all around for Elon as four players ended up in the double digits for points.
Head coach Charlotte Smith said the high-octane offense was due to a mixture of the shots finally falling and creating good opportunities for shooters.
“When we finally found good spacing, we had opportunities,” Smith said. “I thought we did a good job of looking for things in our zone offense, and we had really good shots throughout the season that just hadn't fallen. So you just have to stay confident and keep shooting.”
The Pride went on a 3-minute scoring drought midway into the second quarter, allowing the Phoenix to take advantage and secure a 5-point lead, the largest lead of the game at that point. Elon went into the half up 33-29.
Elon came out of halftime looking good as they extended its lead to eight but it didn’t last long. Hofstra diminished the lead to a mere two points after Elon missed 6 of its last 7 shots.
Elon stormed right back, however. The Phoenix had a quick burst of offense as they scored 8 points in 90 seconds and pushed the lead to 10. They went on to have a 12-1 run before Hofstra called a timeout to regroup. Preston and Angel’s combined 12 points in the third quarter was a major factor in this spurt of offense.
Preston said good spacing and control over the ball was key in this sequence.
“We just had to control what we can; turning people over, defense leads to offense, hitting open players, hitting open shots,” Preston said.
The fourth quarter was all about locking in. Elon saw the win just 10 minutes away and captured it. Its defense improved to an elite level in the final quarter as Hofstra only scored 10 points in the fourth quarter. Communication between players was increased as the defense began to clamp down on Hofstra’s offensive plays. Mirroring her team, Smith also saw victory in her sights as she took her jacket off, began pacing on the sideline and yelled out directives to her players. Once a two point game early in the second half, the Phoenix defense had made it a 19 point one by the time the clock turned zero.
“We were able to create easy opportunities off of our defense,” Smith said. “They gave us energy. They gave us momentum offensively.”
Smith was also impressed with how the team’s improvement in turnovers from the first half to second half. After having 11 first half turnovers, the team only had five in the second half. Smith said they did a much better job of taking care of the basketball.
Preston finished with a double double of 16 points and 10 rebounds while senior Iycez Adams added 12 points and four blocks, including her 100th block of her career. Freshman Jayda Angel, who has been named Coastal Athletic Association Rookie of the Week three times this season, also got involved with an all-around impressive game of 14 points, six rebounds and three assists. Thanks to the involvement of multiple players, Elon was able to score 9 points above its season average.
The win gives Elon current sole possession of 2nd place in the CAA, an impressive milestone for a team that finished 9th in conference last year and a sign of things to come. With lots of basketball still yet to play, Smith said this was expected.
“We talked about how our thing this year is going higher no matter what the preseason predictions are,” Smith said. “They've judged us with outdated information, and we've always known what we're capable of. So this is just a result of our belief in ourselves.”
The Phoenix plays next at Delaware at 2 p.m. Jan. 26.