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Thanks to a new one-handed free throw approach, the women’s basketball team maintained a comfortable lead to beat the Long Beach Vikings 56-44 at the Hutto-Patterson Gym on Jan. 30.

It was evident early on that the Lancers had a good chance of winning, prompting the Viking’s coach Michael Anderson to throw his small coach’s whiteboard on the floor causing his marker to awkwardly roll on to the court during play.

Lancer Head Coach, Joe Peron, credited the success to nailing free throws.

“We made our free throws, we shot them with one hand and we made them,” said Peron. “That has been a difference in about five of our ball games that we lost; [we were] missing free throws, too many of them. And not giving ourselves chance, so tonight we gave ourselves a chance.”

At the end of the first quarter the Lancers were leading 34-28 and the Vikings didn’t get close to gaining a lead in the second half.

“We played as a team. It was about heart tonight,” said Desiree Loving, guard. “We were determined to come out with tenacious tenacity. Coach Peron really emphasized us being perfect and making sure in practice we go extra hard and get all of our jitters out and make sure we come out ready to play.”

The hard work paid off, letting Loving score four of five attempted free throws.

“I know we changed our free throws,” said Kaitlyn Parks, center, who racked up 20 points. “We shot with one hand, that was different. That’s to balance yourself. Coach [Peron] came up with this new way to throw free throws, so we put one hand behind our back to balance our body and we shot with our dominant hand.”

Proving that practice makes perfect, the Lancers are now in third place in the South Coast Conference.

“We practiced two hard days to prepare for this team,” said Shay Jackson, point guard. “We just executed it well and kept our composure. In our first game with them in conference they held me to zero field goals. We told ourselves we were going to be more active and do what we had to do to win.”

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