Rams in the Zone in Win Over Air Force

Every coach has their preferences. Defensively for Ryun Williams, it's man-to-man defense.

The system is what his Colorado State women's team practices 99.99 percent of the time, and during a game, they play it 99.9 percent of the time. But as stubborn as the 12-year leader of the program can be, he can read the writing on the wall.

Or in this case, the trainer's report, which told him Hannah Ronsiek (broken nose) and Marta Leimane (concussion and a split nose) were out for the game. They are the duo who hold one of the most important defensive positions in his system, and their absence cut down the depth of the CSU roster against a squad which was going to press, so Wednesday night against Air Force, Williams read his locker room and the Rams zoned up.

Shock, all around.

"Unheard of. Unheard of," CSU guard McKenna Hofschild said. "I will say we've been asking a little bit to play a zone, because we wanted to try it, so it was fun to try it. I thought we did a pretty good job for that being our first time ever, besides the fourth quarter of the New Mexico game."

Fun in the way of an 81-67 victory for the Rams, who held the Falcons down for the first three quarters – with the exception of Madison Smith – by limiting them to just 41.2 percent from the floor and the conference's top 3-point shooters by percentage to just 6-of-24 from deep. While Smith did her best impression of Hofschild by scoring 31 points on 14-of-20 shooting, the rest of the team was just 14-of-48.

But it had to be done. To shorten the game a bit, and to keep Hofschild, who the team needed to be at her peak offensively, from chasing shooters all night long. Stubborn only goes so far.

"I mean stubborn, stupid – I'm probably all that – when it comes to some things," Williams said. "But we've played it before. We won a couple of championships where that was a big part of our defensive scheme. With this group, they looked at me like … yeah. I'm glad they trusted me. They made it work. It was the way we had to play tonight; I felt it was what this game called for. And although we hadn't played it a lot, it's a pretty experienced group. There's a lot of the same principles in a zone as there are in your man-to-man stuff. It's not as different as maybe we make it seem.

"The execution, the activity in it, the rebounding piece in it, I thought was really good, especially in the first half."

Colorado State blazed out to a 12-0 lead and in the third quarter built it to as large as a 26-point advantage. It was Hofschild leading the way because she was at her peak.

She matched her career best with 37 points on the night, hitting 12-of-19 from the floor, 4-of-5 from behind the arc and sank nine of her 10 free throws. For good measure, she added eight assists. It was the third time this year she's scored 30 or more in a conference game as the Rams improved to 3-2 in league, 12-4 overall.

These games are becoming commonplace for the mighty-mite guard and defending MW Player of the Year.

"I don't want to say average nights, because I'm extremely grateful and blessed to be in the position I am," Hofschild said. "I'm trying not to take anything for granted. I know these games in my career are limited, so I'm trying to have fun with it and not take anything for granted. Also, I feel like I'm in a pretty good groove right now and I'm feeling confident in myself and my teammates, so it's been some pretty fun games lately."

The outing gives her 1,874 points, putting the school's assist leader third on the program's all-time list, and she's just seven points shy of matching Katie Cronin.

The more he watches, the more Williams appreciates, and he wants to enjoy every single night.

"I think sometimes you better just take a step back. It's important we as a staff understand what we get to coach and what we get to witness on a nightly basis," Williams said. "Scoring is not easy. It's not. She makes it look that way, and her kind of destroy-mode mentality tonight was exceptional, and obviously we needed it.

"She's in a really good spot right now mentally. She's attacking at the right time, she's playing and shooting with really good confidence, she's got the game on a string. You can kind of see that experience really play out right now. Yeah, I'll never coach a player like that again. She's that special."

On what has become a rather normal night for her, the Rams did the unthinkable. They made it a lopsided game by playing a zone defense, which kept them in close quarters in rebounding (AFA led 39-32), and it also allowed them to use their length to the tune of seven blocked shots, with Kendyll Kinzer blocking four, Sydney Mech a pair at the top.

Kinzer and Mech are blessed with length, which helped them fill passing lanes, deter shots and even reject some of the Falcons' best looks.

"We've been playing man here the whole time, so being able to adjust was pretty impressive. I think we executed pretty well," Mech said. "I think there are some things we can touch up on now that we see it, work on getting a little better.

"A little switch-up I think helps too. We're pretty long in some places, so it was kind of nice to do that, try to get some touches, but those blocked shots were pretty cool."

When the roster is short, everybody felt a little more was needed in multiple facets of the game.

Williams saw it defensively, but on the offensive end as well.

"Tonight called for that. Sydney, I loved how she shot with great confidence," he said. "The first two were maybe not so close, but that third one she knocked down, she ran the floor and got layups. To have Sydney, Sanna Strom… I thought Kendyll really stepped up tonight. You might not see it in the box score, but she had seven boards and she really kind of anchored that m idle and disrupted a lot of shots, had some blocked shots. Really, we had a lot of kids step up in a variety of different ways."

Mech had a season-best 17 points, while Strom contributed 11 as the Rams shot 52.6 percent as a team. Mech was 3-of-5 from deep, a shot she said Williams has been yelling at her to take more often, so it felt good to deliver.

Now, the question becomes will the Rams play more zone? They played it well, and Mech felt it was a great switch, one they can do better now that they've seen it in action.

"Man. That's a tough question for an old coach. Maybe," Williams said. "It depends on what the scheme is and what the opponent does against a zone. I don't like zone because I don't know much about it, and I don't know whose tail to rip if they score. All I know is if they score, somebody did something wrong. I like to be able to identify who did it.

"All joking aside, I think there will be some games where we can go to this a little bit, and it allows us to probably get to our depth a little more."

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McKenna Hofschild

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Sanna Ström

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McKenna Hofschild

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Hannah Ronsiek

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