In 1998, we had beaten Dixon in OT 66-60 at Galesburg. While we didn't feel we had played well, in the Sectional we played them in the Championship game. We were #1 seed and they were #2 seed. The first time our press had not been very successful against them. So we looked to see if we could make any adjustments to our normal 1-2-1-1 press.
Our primary defense was to press 1-2-1-1 then fall back into half-court man to man defense. This shows our alignment.
#2= Michelle Flaar or Rachel Bicego
#3= Megan Pacheco
#4= Jenny Zolper or Whitney Snyder
#5= Sarah Larson
Most teams inbound the ball to the offense's right side. And we purposely tried to have them go that way. In this case it is inbounded to #1.
So normally on the trap, we were taking away the pass back to the inbounder.
In the Sectional Championship game at Rock Island vs. Dixon, our scouting felt that we wanted their 5 to become a ball handler. #5 as inbounder showed they wanted to be aggressive with ball but we did not feel they were going to always handle the ball well.
Our press adjustment was to trap with X4 and X3 (Zolper or Snyder with M. Pacheco), but not rotate to #5. We wanted #5 to be open. So X2 (Flaar or Bicego) would stay with the person on the weakside.
The other adjustment was made during deadballs. In deadballs, we would deny the ball inbounds to #1 and #2 with our X3 and X2, while our X4 pressed #5 as a passer.
The press adjustment was only part of why we were able to win. Any time you come up with a strategy, the key is players ability to execute and play with intensity.