MELBOURNE, Australia--After a solid night's rest, the Coyotes were ready to go on day two of their trip. The itinerary included visiting Healesville Sanctuary, sightseeing across the Dandenong Ranges and their first game against Victoria Metro Elite.
Today's player blog comes from senior center
Abigail Fogg. And in case you missed it,
check out yesterday's blog by senior guard
Caitlin Duffy.
Today, the team started off the day with an amazing 'brekkie' (breakfast). The fruit, the pastries and the bacon were notably different, but really good. The real winner, though, was the coffee. I had at least two double strong espressos and mochas to my heart's content. It was beyond words. After brekkie, we headed out for the day and our first stop was the animal sanctuary. There we saw all sorts of Aussie wildlife such as koala bears, kangaroos, wombats and wallabies! As we were about to leave we got to talk to some Australian seventh graders that were visiting the zoo as well. Apparently, they mistook coach Aaron Horn for Kevin Hart! After clearing up that misunderstanding and giving each other their best American/Aussie accent impressions, we finally left the sanctuary.
We then drove through the beautiful countryside to our lunch stop. After lunch we headed to the arena to prepare for our game. We were all a little nervous for our first game, but when we hit the floor we came ready to play! We all played well and had a great time. My favorite part of the game experience was that, in Australia, they have a tradition where after games the host team has a meal prepared for the visitors and both teams eat together. It was great to meet the girls on the other team! Overall, a great day in the land down under for the Yotes!
- Abigail Fogg
Freshman forward
Taylor Frederick took over South Dakota's snapchat account for the day. Check out a few screen shots from her story below.
South Dakota senior center
Abigail Fogg put up a career high 19 points and sophomore
Jaycee Bradley tied her career high of 17 points to lead the Coyotes in a 73-55 victory over Victoria Metro Elite.
"Tonight we demonstrated a great deal of toughness," said South Dakota head coach
Dawn Plitzuweit. "They were presented with a difficult scenario of traveling close to 30 hours, adjusting to a 15-hour time change and playing a game the next evening against an Australian championship caliber team. We embraced those challenges and played several stretches of very good basketball. The 24-second shot clock proved to be quick and it was fun to see our athletes in attack mode. We play another talented team tomorrow night, so we will need to recover quickly."
The Coyotes shot 52.9 percent (27-of-51) from the field in the contest. Fogg made 8-of-11 and Bradley was 4-of-7 from behind the arc. Fogg put up 12 of her points in the second half, while Bradley got the Coyotes started off with eight points in the first quarter.
Freshman guard
Ciara Duffy, in her first game as a Coyote, scored 14 points. Duffy had 11 of them by the halftime horn. Junior center
Kate Liveringhouse was the fourth Coyote in double figures with 11 points.
Similar to the 2015-16 season, the Coyotes were well-rounded in attacking the boards. Four Coyotes grabbed six rebounds and two players had four. Bradley, Liveringhouse, Duffy and senior guard
Jasmine Trimboli each tallied six. Sophomore guard
Allison Arens and redshirt-sophomore guard
Kaitlyn Severyn.
Trimboli swatted away three balls in the first quarter for half of the Coyotes' six steals during the game.
The Coyotes face the Melbourne Boomers of the WNBL on Thursday evening.
