Laney basketball on the run after slow start

After starting off slow out of the gate this season, the Laney College women’s basketball team has bounced back by winning six of its last seven games, including a dominating 76-44 victory on Jan. 23 over the College of Marin.

With that win over the Mariners and a 64-61 victory over host Solano College  on Jan. 30, the Eagles now find themselves just a half game out of first place in the Bay Valley Conference standings behind Mendocino College. This victory also helped Laney (10-10, 7-1 BVC) climb back up to .500 for the first time this season.

Even in a nearly flawless game there is usually at least one low point, and that came at about seven minutes into the second half when point guard Kristian Edwards went down with an injured left ankle. Although the injury looked to be serious, Head coach Ron Williams thi thought that Edwards should be ready to go for the Solano game.

Coach Ron Williams also thought his team would be undefeated in conference play at this point of the season.

That one BVC loss, 49-47 at home against Mendocino College on Jan. 17, was a game that Williams said “We would have won if not for missing so many layups.” By one count, the Eagles missed at least 20 shots in the paint. The Eagles and Williams now head into the home stretch of the season with not much room left for error.

Because of a slow start for his team (3-9 in non-conference games) and a bit of a down year for the BVC in general, Williams believes that there will be only one team out of the BVC to make the Northern California playoffs this year.

This means that over these last seven games Laney will have to keep the pedal to the metal and keeping winning—and have a few more performances like the one they just had against College of Marin.

The Eagles have made four consecutive trips to the NorCal playoffs. They aim to make it five.