Corrie Fertitta - all conference post player and intern

Corrie Fertitta gets it done on the court as well as in the office. She started an internship in our office last week and is doing a great job so far. What else would you expect? Hopefully since she will be around the office more often now, I can convince her to write about her last trip through the Big South Conference and our run for a conference title!


Hello Friends! We have just started conference play and its going pretty well so far. We are 2-1 in conference right now and just beat High Point on Saturday. It was a good win. Kelli had an awesome game with 20 points and 15 rebounds, and I can’t wait to get back on the floor on Saturday and play UNC Asheville. We have all week to prepare which is good so we can really focus on what we need to do to get another “W.”
Today I’m starting my second week in the coaches’ office doing my internship with them. I wanted to do my internship with Coach Porter because I wanted to see what goes on behind the scenes as a coach. You always see how practices and games go, but never what has to happen on the business side of things. This will be a good experience for me because I want to be a coach in the future and it will help show me how to deal with things and if it really is something I would like. As for my job, I just do whatever any of the coaches need or want me to do. Last week I made some flyers for our game on Saturday and went around campus posting them up trying to get more support from our student body. I think my flyers worked, because we had a lot more people at the game then normal on Saturday! Yes! So far, it’s really fun in the office and I truly enjoying getting to spend time with all the coaches!

Corrie #20

LONG road trip

Yes, we are STILL on the road. We are in our 3rd hotel and 3rd city in the last 5 days and we've still got one more day and one more very important conference game to play before we head back to Radford. Our trip started last Wednesday and is finally ending up tomorrow night with our game vs Charleston Southern. Yesterday, we got a big win over Coastal Carolina and got our conference season started off the right way. Our starters were great (as always!) and our bench came up really big for us. KP, Kymesha, and Denay had great games! Again, our defense was a major factor in the win and I hope that win is the first of many in Big South Conference play. Road trips aren't really all that bad when I think about it. Right now, I am sooooo full because we ate dinner at Kobe Japanese Steakhouse. The food was amazing and I think we all left with to-go boxes. It's awesome to get to eat at a great place like that and get the chance to laugh and joke with our team for the whole night. I think our group had more fun than anybody else in the whole restaurant (especially when the guy with the drums came out). I won't name any names but a few of our players were dancing on their chairs during Coach Porter's birthday song! I caught some of it on my camera and I promise to upload the video as soon as we get home. Our players aren't shy at all! Well, I'm off to bed now in my king size bed (another perk of being on the road!) since we have to wake up early for shoot around in the morning. We're back at home next Saturday vs High Point and we'd love to get a home crowd advantage. These crowds on the road can be so brutal! Wish us luck tomorrow night...Go Lady Highs!
JRA
Kelli scored her 1000th career point Thursday night vs. Longwood and became our 2nd senior to reach that mark this season. She is also currently the leading shot blocker in the Big South and ranked in the top 15 nationally for blocked shots. Congratulations to Kelli D!

Back on the winning track

Good Morning! It's good to be a part of RU Women's Basketball these days! Our team got it's 13th win of the season on Tuesday night and stretched our record to 13-5 and our winning streak to 3 games in a row. Tuesday night, we played at Presbyterian College and came out of Clinton, SC with a hard fought win. PC will be joining our conference next season along with Gardner Webb University and we found out first hand that their gym is a tough place to win (if you know what I mean). We trailed by 5 at half time after not shooting a great % from the field and not really playing our brand of defense for the first 20 minutes. Kelli and Taleia both got in early foul trouble and didn't see much action in the first half either. The second half was a different story! Whatever magic words Coach Porter said in the locker room at half time, she needs to say that every game because we came out and played our style, shot better, and came away with a great road win. Our girl's are fun to watch when they decide to turn it up a notch on defense and really pressure the other team full court. I was proud of them for keeping their composure and playing from behind in a tough environment. That showed us that our team is growing up and we can battle back and get wins on the road.
I hope the road wins just keep on coming for the next week and a half! We hit the road again next Wednesday to play Longwood University on Thursday then leave from there going to Myrtle Beach to play Coastal Carolina. Then, we leave Coastal going straight to Charleston Southern. It's going to be a LONG road trip. Hopefully, our maturity and leadership will help keep our team focused throughout the weekend and we can open up Big South Conference play with 2 huge wins! You can follow us with live video, audio, and stats through our website at www.ruhighlanders.com.
JRA
p.s. Taleia Moton was named Big South Rookie of the Week last week. That is her 3rd Rookie of the Week honor this season. Congrats to T!

Hoping to start a new streak!

Since I last wrote, we suffered a tough loss at home to Towson University and snapped our 5 game winning streak. Last Wednesday was a game that I really hope taught us a lesson. Coach Porter has been preaching to our team that we will not win a conference championship unless we focus on being the best rebounding team in our conference. We had been finding ways to win games even though we were being outrebounded and against Towson, it finally caught up with us. Towson kicked our butts on the boards and despite a late rally on our part, they left the Dedmon Center with an 8 point victory. Like I said, I think we learned our lesson. The next night, we outrebounded USC Upstate and won by 42 points. On Saturday afternoon, we outrebounded Virginia Intermont and won by 49 points. Good things happen when we focus on defense and rebounding.
Right now, we're in Clinton, SC getting ready to play Presbyterian College tomorrow night at 6:00. We are pretty familiar with their team since it's only been about a week and a half since we played them at home in our Christmas tournament. We won that game by 21 points, but we fully understand that we have to come in ready to play hard tomorrow on their floor to get a win down here. Another team in our conference beat PC by almost 40 points at home and came here last week and only squeeked by with a 4 point win. I think they will be a much tougher team at home and they will definitely get hyped up to play us again. We are trying to adjust to being back on the road again after getting to spend so much time at home during our 5 game homestand. Tomorrow night is the first of 4 straight road games that will stretch over the next 2 weeks. Only 2 more games to continue to improve before Big South plays begins...and that's when it all starts to really matter! We've won 2 in a row right now and hopefully tomorrow we can get a 3rd and start a whole new winning streak...wish us luck!
JRA