Amari Young's Double-Double Powers ODU Women's Basketball Past Coppin State

By Harry Minium
 
NORFOLK, Va. – In its previous outing, a three-point defeat at Elon in which the Old Dominion women's basketball team frittered away a 10-point halftime lead, coach DeLisha Milton-Jones said the Monarchs "gave a game away."
 
Lesson learned.
 
In their first outing since that loss, the Monarchs made sure they didn't give another game away with a 14-1 run early in the third quarter that gave them the cushion they needed to hold off Coppin State. 
 
Although her playing time was limited by early foul trouble, fifth-year senior Amari Young led the Monarchs with 11 points and 13 rebounds as they claimed a 70-63 victory over Coppin State before a crowd of 1,711 at Chartway Arena.
 
Kaye Clark added 15 points, including three three-pointers.

"We were happy to be home because our home court has been very good for us," Milton-Jones said. "And I'm super happy about being in the win column again."
 
"We let one slip away from us at Elon," she added. "There's no way that we could allow one to slip away today."
 
The victory ended a two-game losing streak for the Monarchs (3-3).
 
ODU outscored Coppin State (2-5) by 19 points from the field but the Eagles kept it relatively close from the foul line, where the Eagles outscored ODU, 23-11. 
 
Milton-Jones made use of her entire bench, using all 14 players. Each Monarch played at least four minutes and Jordan McLaughlin, the junior college transfer from Charlotte, North Carolina, played the most with nearly 23.
 
Coppin State coach Jermaine Woods, a graduate of Norfolk's Granby High School and a former Monarch assistant coach, used just eight players, but managed to cut the lead to seven in the final minutes.
 
With a roster dominated by newcomers, Milton-Jones said her Monarchs "are learning from everything, whether we win or whether we lose. We have three losses but we're taking what happens in every game and allowing it to reinforce everything we need to learn for our Sun Belt season." 
 
Young, the 5-foot-11 guard from North Augusta, South Carolina, said the loss to Elon was a bitter pill to swallow.
 
"That was tough," she said. "I think we should have beaten them by at least 20. But we're learning from every game."
 
Milton-Jones said the 14-1 run was inspired by ODU's defense, which increased the pressure on the Eagles and often forced them to take poor shots.
 
"We knew we needed to defend better and came out and defended well," Young said.
 
ODU led at the end of a sloppy first half, 31-27, largely because the Eagles made just 25 percent of their shots.
 
ODU's Jada Duckett blocked a shot by Coppin State's Jalynda Salley, but Salley got the rebound to trim what had been a nine-point lead to two, 22-20, with 4:50 left in the second quarter.
 
Makayla Dickens' three-point shot allowed ODU to take the four-point lead into halftime.
 
Clark opened the second half with a three-point shot and then Young followed with two free throws and a second chance shot to give ODU an 11-point lead 2 ½ minutes into the third quarter.
 
After a Coppin State free throw, Dickens made another three-pointer, Duckett a layup and Young a bank shot to give ODU a 17-point lead, 45-28, midway through the third quarter.
 
Coppin State briefly narrowed the lead to single digits late in fourth quarter, but could not quite overcome the cushion ODU built in the third quarter.
 
Milton-Jones praised Woods, who is a first-year head coach at Coppin State.
 
"Jermaine has a good thing going over there," Milton-Jones said. "He's building a really good program. Once those players learn how to be disciplined and trust what he's doing, then they're really going to have a good program."
 
ODU next plays Wednesday when the Monarchs host Temple at 6:30 p.m. in the annual Anne Donovan Classic game.
 
The game is named for former Old Dominion All-American Anne Donovan, the late, 6-8 ODU center who led the university to a national championship and three Final Four appearances.
 
Donovan had a long playing and coaching career after leaving ODU. She passed away in 2018.
 
Members of Donovan's family will attend the game as ODU's guests.
 
"The Classic is special to us because Anne was the gentle giant," Milton-Jones said. "She was my Olympic coach in 2008. She did tremendous things for this university.
 
"She bled blue, Hudson Blue, for ODU and is a giant in the game of women's basketball."