MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Kysre Gondrezick called it a result of a long Christmas lay-off. Mike Carey simply said the 19th-ranked Mountaineers were fortunate to have been the bigger and more athletic team.
Just about any way the Mountaineers’ 68-62 victory against Cornell was broken down on Tuesday, WVU needed a little bit of luck to hold off the Big Red (6-5).
“It’s an eye-opener for us and it shows we haven’t played in a long time,” said WVU guard Tynice Martoin, who finished with 19 points and six rebounds. “Our biggest downfall is we play a game and then we don’t have a game for six or seven days. Then we play another game and then we don’t play for another week. We’re kind of going through that right now.”
That is all soon to change for WVU (10-1), which begins Big 12 play with road games next week against Kansas State and Kansas, followed by the rest of the conference season.
Going off the result against Cornell, the Mountaineers have plenty to work on before being ready for league play.
“They played harder than we did. They executed better than we did,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “They acted like they never saw a (full-court) press before and had a bunch of turnovers. We didn’t execute on either end.
“We had bigger and stronger athletes. That’s the only reason we won today.”
A fast start didn’t hurt, either. Martin connected on her first four shots and combined with Gondrezick to score the Mountaineers’ first 16 points, in what ended with a 21-9 edge after the first quarter.
From there, the Big Red played shot-for-shot with the Mountaineers and Cornell’s full-court pressure in the second half made a huge difference.
“It wasn’t anything we were shaken up about. We knew it was coming,” said Gondrezick, who added 14 points and four assists. “We’re still recovering from Christmas break, to be honest. We’ve got to get going and we’ve got to pick it up. This was an eye-opener for us to show us that we have to get ready for Big 12 play.”
Cornell twice cut West Virginia’s advantage to as little as one point, both times coming off creating a turnover with its full-court pressure.
Cornell, which was led by Samantha Widman’s 21 points, also came away with a 39-34 rebounding advantage and the Big Red outscored the Mountaineers in the paint, 38-30. WVU didn’t help matters any by shooting just 10 of 22 from the foul line.
“We didn’t come to the ball,” Carey said. “We hid back there and wanted Madisen (Smith) to be told things so we could shoot. I just think they played harder than we did. They rebounded it harder than we did. We gave up 15 offensive rebounds. We’ve played big and athletic teams and haven’t done that. They just out-hustled us.”
Kari Niblack had three baskets in the paint in the fourth quarter and Gondrezick nailed her second 3-pointer to help thwart the upset bid. Niblack added 10 points and six rebounds.
“Hopefully this wakes them up,” Carey said. “You can believe we’re going to have some good practices going into the Kansas State game.”
TWEET @bigjax3211
