Coyote women focus on Summit League Championships

After closing the regular season on a 14-game win streak, losing only once in Summit League play and winning their second consecutive Summit League regular season title, the Coyote women now look to finish strong in the Summit League Tournament.

Two road wins to end the season, one over Fort Wayne, 90-63 and one over IUPUI, 74-63, allowed the Coyotes to lock up the No. 1 seed for the Summit League Tournament.

The Coyotes will face Denver in their first game of the tournament. USD had no trouble with the Pioneers in conference play, taking them down 85-60 at home and 79-33 on the road.

The Coyotes finish the regular season with 24-5 overall record and a 15-1 Summit League record. Despite their conference domination, the team is being careful not to overlook anyone. All year long the Coyotes have had an unofficial motto of one game at a time. This is just as relevant now as it was at the beginning of the season, Coyote head coach Amy Williams said.

“When you get to the post season and its win or go home, it certainly makes it even more important that you just focus on the most important game on our schedule, and that just happens to be the next game,” she said. “In this case, that’s Denver on Saturday at noon. That’s the most important one and we won’t look at anything other than that.”

To make the NCAA Tournament, the Coyotes must win three games in four days. It’s just as much a test of endurance as it is talent. Lucky for the Coyotes, their depth is a big part of their success this season. USD has 13 players averaging six minutes or more.

“The depth is really the key to our success. We’ve had consistent production off of our bench and players that continue to come in and find ways to contribute,” Williams said. “That’s what makes us very dangerous. We credit that depth to our team’s success.”

Last season the Coyotes won the Summit League regular season and entered the tournament as favorites. A 72-57 loss in the championship to South Dakota State derailed USD’s NCAA Tournament hopes. Williams said she’s careful to make sure her team doesn’t dwell on the past.

“It’s really not in the back of our minds and it may be hard to believe this,” she said. “We certainly lean heavily on the experiences we’ve had in the past and we’ve had players that have been there before, but this is a new team and it’s a new culture. It’s a new feel.”

The Coyotes’ first game is against Denver on Saturday at noon in the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls. A win in the first round will mean a game on Monday at noon against the winner of the Oral Roberts and Western Illinois match. The championship will take place Tuesday at 1 p.m. The winner receives an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s really not about last year. We’re not putting that in the back of our mind, we’re not dwelling on that,” Williams said. “We’re just focused on one game at a time and this team doing what they’re capable of accomplishing.”