The ball continued to find its way into Elashier Hall’s hands. In the early part of the game the junior guard simply couldn’t be stopped. Hall pestered St. Francis point guard Nickia Gibbs early on, stealing the ball from her three times in the opening two and a half minutes.

Hall’s energy in the first few minutes set the tone for the rest of the game. Syracuse continually frustrated the Red Flash guards causing turnovers and rushing out in transition for easy points.

‘I was just really energized and really ready to play,’ Hall said. ‘I came off a good game, and I was trying to keep it up for my teammates and set the pace.’

Hall opened the game 4-of-4 shooting, scoring the team’s first 9 points of the game and adding a block and three steals. Her quick start, fueled by the three steals, sparked a dominant overall performance from the Orange (2-0). Relying on a high-pressure 2-3 zone for much of the first half, combined with a great rebounding effort, SU was able to pull away in the opening minutes and dominate the Red Flash (0-3) in its 88-45 victory in front of 788 Friday in the Carrier Dome. The victory was head coach Quentin Hillsman’s 100th of his career.

The Orange bullied St. Francis right from the opening tip-off. On SU’s first possession, three different Syracuse players grabbed an offensive rebound before Hall scored the team’s first points on a short jumper from the left elbow.

SU would put pressure on the Red Flash interior players all game long. In the first four minutes, the Orange gathered six offensive rebounds. In a flash, the Orange was up 13-0.

‘It’s just more of our effort crashing the boards,’ SU forward Carmen Tyson-Thomas said. ‘It’s something that we do, we all go to the board hard. Iasia, even our guards, our smaller guards, myself, Lacie, Kayla, we all put in the effort and know where we’re supposed to be.’

In another dominating rebounding performance for the Orange, three players finished with a double-double for SU. Hall led the way with 18 points all in the first half and 10 rebounds. Tyson-Thomas finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds, and Iasia Hemingway  scored 11 points with 10 boards off the bench.

The success was a chain reaction. It started with the defense, which forced St. Francis to just 25 percent shooting in both the first and second halves. The Orange corralled those misses and turned it up court, pushing the tempo.

At 13:11 in the first half, Hemingway grabbed a rebound off a miss by guard Kelley Doogan. Hemingway looked upcourt, fed it to Rachel Coffey on the right side who took a few dribbles and sent a long, looping pass to Tyson-Thomas. She swooped under the basket and finished with a right-handed layup high off the glass.

Tyson-Thomas was fouled on the play and converted the free throw to push SU’s lead to 22-6.

‘I think that our pressure speeds the game up and our pressure is starting to lead to some weak-side rebounding,’ Hillsman said. ‘ … The more we get out into transition and the more we can create turnovers, the better team we are going to be.’

Hillsman said that after turning the ball over 28 times against Long Beach State, limiting these mistakes was a point of emphasis. Friday, the Orange turned the ball over eight fewer times.

Syracuse took advantage of tough play on the boards in an effective manner, without giving the Red Flash any unwarranted points. SU had just eight fouls throughout the game, yielding only seven points from the free-throw line. Syracuse, though, took advantage in the up-tempo offense on the other end of the court and got to the stripe a ton, converting on 27-of-35 free-throw attempts to pull away.

It was a complete performance to dominate St. Francis easily.

‘We really believe that our defense is good enough that if we don’t give away points off turnovers and give away points from the free throw line that we can be a very good basketball team,’ Hillsman said.

adtredin@syr.edu

Published on November 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm