Coppin State Avenges UMES in the MEAC Tourney

Coppin State women's basketball team: Laila Lawrence (31), Tiffany Hammond (2), and Faith Blackstone (12) in their MEAC basketball tournament game against the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.  Photo Credit:  Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)

By Wole Akinso
(@Wole_USS)

Norfolk, VA— Coppin State forward Laila Lawrence leads the Coppin State Eagles to a 61-55 victory over the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to advance to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) women’s basketball tournament semifinals.

Lawrence had the game-high of 17 points.  She was force inside and outside on floor.  Eagles coach Jermaine Woods talked about Lawrence setting the tone against the Hawks.

“We all else fails, we give the ball to Laila Lawrence.  We want to play through Laila and the team has accepted that.”

After UMES had a 27-25 lead coming out of halftime, the Eagles took their defense to another level.  They forced the Hawks to shoot 35 percent from the field in the second half.  Coach Woods was motivated after a regular season 73-51 loss to UMES in February. 

“The goal was to avenge what happen at Eastern Shore.  We thought that they just played hard than us.  They played tougher than us.  And we didn’t stand up to the challenge.  So, I’ve been challenging them since we knew we were playing Eastern Shore.  By the way, this is the game we wanted.  Since we’ve been preparing for them, the goal was just be tough.  For the last two-three weeks, we’ve been practicing differently.  We’ve been practicing harder, practicing tougher, denying the passing lanes, being up on people, being more physical and they showed that today.” 

UMES head coach Fred Batchelor was unable to find answers to Coppin’s defense.

“I thought they took us out of what we wanted to do.  They did a good job game-planning, and I thought their kids really stepped up.”

The Eagles outscored UMES 38-26 in the second half.  The four seed Eagles will be taking on the one seed Norfolk State Spartans, Friday at noon in the semifinals.