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Anderson at center of Hurricanes' attack

The Citrus senior leads her team to a 58-26 win against Lecanto with a career-high 24 points.

By CAREY FREEMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 19, 2002

INVERNESS -- At best, Citrus' Meaggen Anderson stands 5 feet 11. But one never would have known it Friday night.

To Lecanto, the senior center must have seemed like a 7-footer. At least that's the way she played, scoring a career-high 24 points and hauling in 15 rebounds to pace Citrus (12-6) in a 58-26 thrashing of the Panthers.

"I got a lot of good looks and good assists," said Anderson, who also had four steals. "I thought I was just going to have an okay game because they have pretty good size.

"But, when I started getting open, I just started going up stronger and stronger and all they could do was foul me."

Fouling Anderson, who was two for six from the line, might have worked had Lecanto (6-16) done it more often. As it was, the senior had a free-for-all in the lane, plucking offensive rebounds and putting them back for easy scores. On defense, she forced the Panthers' offense to take longer, low-percentage shots. Hurricanes guard Katie Steelfox (eight points) was held well below her average of 14.4 points per game, but made up for it with a game-high seven steals and three assists. Alycia LePage (six points) ran the offense to perfection, dishing out a game-high eight assists, many going to Anderson.

"We were going down there because most of the teams we've played have kept the middle wide open," Steelfox said. "That's just what was open. We were playing as a team. It doesn't really matter who scores."

Citrus' pressure defense took Lecanto out of the game early and held the Panthers to just five first-half field goals. The Hurricanes led 21-7 after the first quarter then extended it to 30-11 at the half behind 13 first-half points from Anderson and eight from Steelfox.

"They took us out back and beat us with a switch, and we're going to have to learn from it," Panthers coach Ron Allan said. "(Citrus) executed in every part of the game. Ball-handling, rebounding, the press ... everything they did they did well and we didn't respond in kind."

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