Newsom catches fire from three as Lady Blazers pick up win over Rend Lake

VINCENNES, Ind. – Vincennes University sophomore Cherrelle Newsom (Indianapolis, Ind.) has now hit 11 three-pointers in her last two games, hitting five at Lincoln Trail Wednesday night before adding six more Saturday afternoon in VU’s 93-75 win over Rend Lake College at the P.E. Complex.

Newsom’s 148 career three-point makes puts her fifth all-time in VU Lady Trailblazers program history and is quickly closing in on the top spot of 171 set by Ashley Buis in 2010.

The game got off to a back and forth start, with each team trading baskets before VU finally broke away with a 6-0 scoring run.

This would be the difference in the early stages of the game as the Lady Trailblazers held a 25-19 lead after the first quarter of play.

VU again looked to break the game open in the second quarter, using an 11-0 run to take a 40-23 lead midway through the period.

The Lady Warriors would answer back however, using a small scoring run to cut the deficit down to 13 heading into the halftime break at 45-32.

Rend Lake continued to work their way back into the game, cutting the VU margin to seven early in the third quarter, but Vincennes answered every comeback with a run of their own.

The Lady Warriors used a late 7-0 run in the third quarter to head into the final 10 minutes of play trailing 65-55.

Vincennes looked to close out the Region win strong in the fourth quarter, holding a double-digit lead throughout most of the final period, before using a 10-1 scoring run to take their largest lead of the game at 20 points.

Vincennes would pick up their fifth Region 24 victory of the season and 12th win overall by defeating Rend Lake College by the final score of 93-75.

“I thought we played decent defense, good enough to win,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Harry Meeks said. “We got off to a little bit of a slow start again, didn’t do a great job in the third quarter. We gave up some easy baskets. Rebounding in the second half was not to my liking.”

“We just need to play better,” Meeks added. “We need to play a little harder. We need to be more aggressive with our block outs. We need to call the shot, so we know when the shot has been taken and we can look around and grab the rebound. The little things like that we need to work on and we will continue to work on.”

“I thought the team played well as far as executing and doing the things well that we needed to do,” Meeks said. “We didn’t make that many errors handling the ball. We did a really good job offensively. Cherrelle got it going, making some threes which helped us jump away from them. This was a game where everybody got to play. We are going to need everybody to play and everybody to be a major contributor the rest of the season. The schedule is going to be tough going forward, we have Wabash Valley next week and that is going to be a really tough game for us. Before that we go to Southwestern Illinois, which is quite a trip and it’s in the middle of the week.”

VU was led offensively by Cherrelle Newsom who finished with a new career-high 27 points, including six made threes. Newsom would also lead the Lady Blazers with six assists and grab four rebounds on the game.

Sophomore Kennadi Harris (Columbus, Ohio) got started early and cruised to a 17-point, eight-rebound and four assist game. Harris would also stand out defensively, ending with three steals.

Sophomore Daylynn Thornton (Lafayette, Ind.) had a very efficient shooting night, ending with 15 points on just eight shots, four assists and a pair of steals.

Sophomore Chanice Willis (Champaign, Ill.) came away with her first career double-double Saturday afternoon after finishing with 12 points, 10 rebounds and a team-leading six assists and four steals.

“Those four all play really hard, that’s the thing,” Meeks said. “They all pressure the ball defensively and can transition from defense to offense and get down the floor quickly. One of the things that I noticed in the second half was that we tend to play better when we don’t hold the ball. We’ve got to pass the ball quickly and run the offense. We were able to get some wide-open shots when we sped the offense up and that’s what we need to do.”

“All four of them are sophomores, they’ve been here and they know what we are about here,” Meeks added. “They know the price that you have to pay to win a game like this and I think they showed up and did a really good job for us today.”

The Lady Trailblazers look to continue this great play as they continue this stretch of three games in five days.

VU will next travel to Belleville, Ill. to take on Region 24 opponent Southwestern Illinois College Monday, Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. eastern.

Then the Lady Blazers will face-off against No. 14 Wabash Valley for the first time this season at the P.E. Complex, Wednesday, Jan. 18 at 5 p.m. eastern.

“This, right now, is the part of the season that we have been aiming for,” Meeks said. “We’ve played some really tough teams. We’ve been on the floor with a lot of ranked teams so far this season. I’m glad to see the team start to come around because we are going to have to play extremely well against Wabash Valley.”

“They have a lot of second and third year players,” Meeks added. “He has some players that have transferred in from other schools. Coach Scheidecker does a great job of coaching them and we are going to have to deal with that. They run a pressing defense. They are running at the ball pretty much the entire game. We are going to have to be able to handle that. Offensively we are going to have to handle the press and if we do that, we will see how long we can stay in the game. I think if we bring our ‘A’ game, we’ll do a really good job with that.”

“Southwestern Illinois is much better and more improved than they were last year,” Meeks said. “I think that game will be similar to this game this afternoon. They are going to show up and play hard and we will get their best effort. We look forward to playing over there. I promise you, we are not looking past Southwestern. We’ve got to take these games one at a time and hopefully we can string some wins together at the end of the season and give us something to build on as we move towards the Region tournament.”