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WILKES-BARRE — If they had the choice, the Lady Monarchs would never bring up last month’s loss at Misericordia ever again.
But that 64-38 defeat on Jan. 17 is key to understanding the impressive turnaround for the King’s women’s basketball team. That 26-point loss has proved to be a season-altering moment.
At the time, it dropped the Lady Monarchs back to .500 in Freedom Conference play and was their third loss in four games.
Sure, it was only six games into the conference season, but the Lady Monarchs had to make a choice. They could either revert back to their 2016-17 season — when King’s won just five games — or continue to take the strides they showed during the earlier portion of this season.
King’s chose the latter.
“I think right then in that moment (things changed),” senior forward Olivia Hoffman said. “I mean, again, it was not our best shooting night at all, so that didn’t help either — but a lot of that came from us just not playing. Besides shooting, everything else was in our control.
“I think after that, we took the day, we realized that we could not let this slip away. Like, ‘We are here. We know we are a good team and … this is ahead of us still. We have the whole half of the season to turn this around.’ And I’m glad we did.”
The Lady Monarchs look like a completely different team since that road loss.
They’ve won seven of their last nine games, including earning some revenge with a 15-point home win against the Cougars on Feb. 8 — to secure the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Freedom Conference tournament. The Lady Monarchs travel to DeSales for a semifinal matchup on Wednesday in what will be their first conference tournament appearance since the 2012-13 season.
As the Lady Monarchs have been able to stack wins, they’ve done it impressively on the defensive end.
They rank second in the conference in scoring defense — giving up 55.3 points per game on average. Only two teams have scored more than 60 points during the stretch. King’s has held two teams in the 40s and three to 50 or less, including Tuesday’s 82-49 win over rival Wilkes.
Hoffman, a Wyoming Valley West alum, has led the way on defense, leading the conference in blocks (3.8 per game) and ranking fifth in rebounds (8.5 per game). Teammate Rebecca Prociak, a Holy Redeemer grad, ranks third in rebounds with 8.9 per game.
“It was just a matter of putting it all together and just playing together because that was a defining moment,” sophomore guard Mackenzie Yori said. “We just needed to get everything together — everyone playing on the same page, everyone running the same offense, everyone getting locked down on defense. That’s when we turned it around on defense, too, because our defense wasn’t very good that day, and I don’t even know if we had any defense that day.
”I think, just really locking down on defense fuels our offense if anything. And I think that punch in the face from (Misericordia) on the defensive end, that just fueled us to come back even better.”
While the defense has been what’s stood out the most over the last month, Yori, the team’s sharpshooter, has found her touch as of late. The Hazleton Area alum has finished in double figures in seven of the last nine games, including a pair of 20-point performances against DeSales and Wilkes on Feb. 10 and 13, respectively.
Yori has buried at least three 3-pointers in six of her last eight games, and at least five in the last two of the last three.
With Yori heating up, it’s opened up the post for Hoffman and Prociak.
Hoffman is averaging 8.9 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists since Jan. 17, while Prociak is averaging close to a double-double — 16.1 points and 9.9 rebounds.
“That’s why we’re such a terrible nightmare for other people when they’re looking at matchups,” second-year head coach Caitlin Hadzimichalis said. “If you want to attack in the paint, yes, Liv’s a presence there, but we also have crazy ball pressure from Mack and (Kayla) Dillinger. Offensively, if they want to take away Becca in the post, well, then they’re going to have to deal with Mack making threes. Or they’re going to have to deal with Liv catching in the mid-range and being able to fire that shot. Or reversing the ball around because she’s our best passer — she leads us in assists.
“We have so many different options going forward and our style of play is reads. It’s not A-to-B-to-C. That’s why we’re clicking right now. It’s because you have to take those lumps and those learning curves and try and get that chemistry going. But we ground it out each day at practice and they’re starting to figure out, ‘Well, if they go here, then I can go here.’ And that’s tough to scout.”
But hot streak aside, the Lady Monarchs know work is still left to be done.
They’re not satisfied with just reversing the standings from a year ago — finishing seventh in 2017 and moving up to third in 2018.
They’ve said it from the beginning. The Lady Monarchs expected to contend for a conference championship, and now with a matchup against DeSales — King’s split the season series — in the Freedom Conference semifinals, they’ll have a chance to move one step closer.
“It’s just been such a fun journey because, honestly, I think people thought in the beginning that we were underdogs,” Yori said. “That we were nothing. And taking our record from last year and thinking, ‘Well, this is King’s. They only have five wins from last year, overall.’ I think that’s been, again, another motivator for us because we’re all so close and such best friends. Playing together and doing the amazing things we’ve done and pulling out games like we have, it’s just been a ball of fun.”
“It really has,” Hoffman added with a chuckle.
