The 2010 National Champions returned home to White Auditorium this Saturday in their home opener against the Golden Bears of Concordia St. Paul. The Hornets were able to control the paint and won the game 70-52.
“It was a tale of two halves,” said Head Coach Jory Collins. “I think the big tale was we missed a lot of layups in the first half. We had some gimmes that we normally are going to make, and that any college athlete ought to make that we just didn’t tonight.”
Emporia State was met with a challenge in the first half as Concordia St. Paul hung close throughout. The Hornets held the lead for the majority of the half until the Golden Bears tied the game at 18 with 6:32 remaining. Two layups by Freshman Guard Rheanna Egli sparked the Hornets as they closed the half on an 11-3 run.
Sophomore Guard Jocelyn Cummings led all scorers in the first half with eight points, three of them coming in the late first half run.
“I think definitely our defense really helped create us some offensive fast break points, just (getting the ball) down the floor to Rachel (Hanf) or just whoever getting us going, making some layups,” Cummings said.
The Hornets carried that late first half momentum into the second behind Senior Forward Alli Volkens and Cummings. The Hornets were able to push the lead to 20 at the 14:10 mark as Volkens added eight points in the run.
Emporia State continued to control the game as well as the paint as they went on to win easily 70-52. The Hornets outscored the Golden Bears 52 to 28 inside as well as outrebounding them 45 to 32.
“(Controlling the paint) was going to be our goal,” Collins said. “Concordia St. Paul lost I think three or four of their front court players, and they had some young ones playing tonight. For the most part, you control the paint with rebounding, shot blocking, and I thought we were really good in there.”
Erica Gress of Concordia St. Paul led all scorers in the game with 18 points and five rebounds.
For Emporia State, Jocelyn Cummings had 15 points along with seven rebounds, four of which were offensive. Volkens, Egli and Kelsey Balcom all ended the night scoring in double figures. Volkens led the team in rebounds with nine and added five blocks on the night.
Emporia State travels to Colorado Springs, Col. next week to play at the UCCS Invitational. Their first game will be at 2 p.m. Nov. 26.
Brandon Schneeberger
Pulaski celebrates its black history: It’s important not to forget what’s behind us, one speaker told about 100 people at the event.
The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, VA) February 18, 2007 Byline: Paul Dellinger Feb. 18–PULASKI — It was 1961, and George Penn was among a group of black students integrating for the first time what was then Pulaski High School.
“Those were tough days,” Penn, now a funeral home director in Pulaski, recalled Saturday night at a celebration of black history in the town.
Penn remembered a white student who “came up and greeted me and welcomed me into Pulaski High School. That wasn’t a popular thing to do then, but John did it.” That was John White, who later became a college president and is now economic development director for the town of Pulaski. go to website pulaski high school
“Sometimes it’s important not to forget what’s behind,” White told the nearly 100 people attending the black history event in the First Baptist Church. He said the gathering was to come together but not mask reality.
If he wanted to study the history of the town when he was a student, he said, he would not have found it complete in the existing texts. “It was about white men doing what white men did,” he said.
But black people were active in Pulaski’s history, too.
Dr. P.C. Corbin was Pulaski’s first black doctor and, when an influenza epidemic gave all doctors everything they could handle and more, he ended up treating white patients as well as black. Chauncey Harmon, principal of what was then Calfee Training School in 1938, exerted an influence on black education. pulaskihighschool.net pulaski high school
Marilyn Harmon, his granddaughter, thanked the people in the church for remembering the two families. Her own father, she recalled, told her, “Sometimes you have to lose to win.” She did not understand that as a girl, but she does now.
“It may cost you your job, your friends, your income,” she said, to do the right thing, especially in the days before integration.
Corbin’s daughter, Jacqueline Corbin Pleasants, 91, also attended.
Penn introduced Art Meadows, who had been Pulaski’s first black town councilman, and Joe Reed, a Pulaski County school principal, as examples “to see the transition from then until now.” He spoke of the Jamestown celebration. “Jamestown, some of it has some bitter memories. But you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been,” he said.
The Rev. Gary Hash, from the Jubilee Christian Center in Radford, was the program’s main speaker and urged blacks to involve themselves in the community, including owning businesses.
“We don’t get up on Monday morning and meet the man” going to work, he said. “I’m talking about getting up on Monday morning and being the man.” He said entrepreneurship and owning businesses is important in a town where nearly a quarter of the population is black. Lack of vision is the biggest obstacle that population needs to overcome, he said.
Hash said black parents also must face up to responsibilities of providing landmarks for their children and getting them out of a “hip-hop culture that has hurt this generation.” “We’ve got to accept responsibility for our communities,” Hash said. “We’ve got to get the dreamers talking.” The collection during the program, which was followed by a potluck supper, went to benefit the T.G. Howard Community Center, which Penn said has been allowed to deteriorate. He said it is the only town building the black community really owns, and it needs to be salvaged.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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