Press. Trap. Run.

A simple recipe that never fails to produce good results, it’s the method behind the tenacious defense of the Georgetown women’s basketball team.

“They’ve just been so aggressive,” Head Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “With trapping and breaking up the passing lane, [the team] has really bought into the defense.”

After allowing just three points over a span of 12 minutes of play at the start of a 71-40 drubbing of LaSalle on Tuesday night, the Hoyas improved their record to 6-2 and extended their winning streak to five.

Throughout this streak, the Hoyas have allowed just one team, Central Michigan, to score more than 60 points in a game.

“The girls get excited about the defense and running. We’re a running team,” Williams-Flournoy said.

Georgetown employs a transition technique, moving quickly up and down the floor, keeping constant pressure on opposing offenses and disrupting any plans to slow the game down. The results have been tangible: The Blue and Gray forced LaSalle to commit 36 turnovers, while permitting the Explorers just 31 attempted shots.

“We’re not any different as a team from last year, the way we’re still playing,” Williams-Flournoy said in regard to the 2008-2009 team that reached the quarterfinals of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.

The Hoyas are, however, more experienced. Of Georgetown’s 18 steals against LaSalle, senior guard Kenya Kirkland, junior guard Monica McNutt and sophomore forward Adria Crawford all led the team with three apiece. Freshman guard Ta’Shauna “Sugar” Rodgers led the team with 17 points and has emerged as the top scorer despite her youth. “I can’t say that I expected it, but I knew she was very capable of doing it,” Williams-Flournoy said of Rodgers’ early domination of the stat sheet.

Yet it has been two second-year players who have stepped up this season for the Blue and Gray.

Sophomore guard Rubylee Wright finished with 15 points and four assists against the Explorers. Her classmate, sophomore forward Latia Magee, led the team with seven rebounds and six assists, while also notching 13 points.

It was just the latest in a series of great performances over the last three games from the Oklahoma native. Magee has recorded 47 points, 21 rebounds, 15 assists and nine steals, while shooting better than 50 percent from the floor. In a 94-69 handling of Central Michigan last Wednesday, Magee came just a few passes short of securing a triple-double, finishing with 18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

“[Magee], over the last three games, is showing [[us]] the player she could be,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Last year, she was a freshman, so this year, she wasn’t going to miss a beat.”

The matchup against LaSalle wasn’t perfect, though. The Hoyas grabbed 32 rebounds, but just 12 came on the defensive side.

“We need to get more rebounds on the defensive end. We’ve already got them on the offensive end,” Williams-Flournoy said after her team grabbed an impressive 20 offensive rebounds compared to nine for LaSalle.

Senior forward Jaleesa Butler attributed the lack of defensive rebounding to the team’s running style.

“We’re more of a transition team,” she said. “We like running and getting out [on the fast break]. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves, so we have to get the rebound first. Sometimes we think `run first,’ but we can fix it now.”

Williams-Flournoy described Butler as more of a vocal leader this year, which the senior acknowledged.

“My game-play is not what it should be, but my teammates have been there to back me up,” Butler said modestly.

The St. Louis native leads the team with 56 rebounds and 10 blocks, and is second with a 46 percent clip from the field.

“As a senior I was kind of put into it,” she continued. “As a senior leader, you set a lot of outside rules, like pulling a freshman or a sophomore off to the side, telling them what they did wrong.”

That guidance certainly helps, especially on a team with 10 sophomores and freshmen. Butler and her teammates will be put to the test this Saturday when Georgetown takes on Wake Forest in a rematch of last year’s WNIT battle. The Hoyas won that game, earning a spot in the quarterfinals of the tournament.

Just like last year, the Hoyas are riding a hot streak going into the game. Before Tuesday night’s win, Georgetown scored 90 or more points in back-to-back games. In a 94-69 victory over Central Michigan, Rodgers was a defense’s nightmare, scoring a season-high 29 points, while Butler racked up 10 rebounds and three blocked shots. Wright tallied eight points and eights assists, as the Hoyas shot 49 percent from the field.

On Saturday, Georgetown finally played its first home game after six on the road. In their McDonough opener, the Hoyas crushed Wofford 90-57. Five Hoyas – Butler, Rodgers, Magee, Wright and junior guard Monica McNutt – scored in double figures. Rodgers had her second consecutive 20-point game, finishing with 25 points, while shooting a sparkling 6-of-8 from three-point range. McNutt led the team with five steals, while Magee and Butler each had four as Georgetown forced an astounding 42 turnovers, more than one per minute. Georgetown has forced 106 turnovers during the last three games.

The Hoyas will bring their persistent defense back to McDonough on Saturday, with tipoff scheduled for 1 p.m. against the Deamon Deacons.

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