Generals continue their march through the City
The bar is set high at Milwaukee King this season, therefore coach Craig Machut’s grading curve is extremely tough.
Friday night the Generals girls basketball team defeated rival Milwaukee Vincent, 70-49, at home. The Journal Sentinel area’s second-ranked team led for the final 33 minutes 50 seconds, posted five players in double figures and showed some resolve by shaking off a secondhalf run by Vincent that cut what had been a 21-point lead nearly to single digits.
Machut, King’s coach, is looking for more.
“I didn’t think we executed that well today," he said. "I’m not as happy about that win as I would like to be. Vincent always plays us tough. Vincent always finds a way to turn it into a dogfight and that’s what they did to-
day.
“I didn’t think our girls played through it as well as I would like them to. We still have a lot of learning to do.”
King’s sophomore-laden squad is storming through the City Conference’s Gold Division. The victory over Vincent was actually its closest game in its first round through the division. The Generals (14-0, 4-0) have wins over Languages, Riverside and Washington that came by an average of 36.7 points.
Friday they led by as many as 23 points on two occasions. Sophomore guard Kaye Clark hit 6 of 11 shots and scored a season-high 17 points. Annaly Garcia, another sophomore guard, had 12 points that included two firsthalf three-pointers. Sydnee Roby, the team’s 6foot-4 sophomore center, battled foul trouble but finished with 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting, grabbed four rebounds and blocked two shots.
The key stretch of the game for King came 5 minutes into the contest when a 17-5 run turned a 7-6 lead into a 24-11 advantage with 71⁄2 minutes left in the half.
Freshman guard Briasha Townsend started the run with a three-pointer. From there King’s ability to force turnovers and attack the basket made a difference. It forced six turnovers during that stretch and Clark went hard to the hoop, capping the run with nine straight points. It was her steal and layup that gave King the 13-point lead that to that point was its largest.
Clark, who entered play averaging 10.1 points per game, had 11 at the half.
“Our defense dialed up,” Machut said. “We started to get defensive stops and we got some open-court scores and Kaye really capitalized on going to the rim. She was starting to cut up their zone a little bit and get to the rim. She played a real tough game today.”
Savanna Crockett (13 points), Ariel Kirkwood (12) and Kathryn Kirkwood (11) scored in double figures for the Vikings, who dropped to 7-6 overall and 2-2 in the division. They trailed by as many as 23 points in the second half, though the first time that happened they responded with a 13-2 run that trimmed the deficit to 54-42 with 6 minutes to play.
That was some consolation for a team that is still learning to play without all-conference guard Albany Dodd, who has been out all season with a left ACL injury.
“I wanted to see where we’re at,” Vincent coach James Wright said. “This is a new team we have this year. King is playing good basketball right now. They’re playing March basketball right now.”
King has supplemented its conference slate with one of the area’s toughest non-conference schedules. Coming up the Generals face three teams who entered play Friday either first of second in their league: New Berlin Eisenhower on Tuesday, Arrowhead on Jan. 20 and Sussex Hamilton on Feb. 7.
“I take it as (I would) a conference game,” Clark said of the matchups. “I’ll play hard, attack the basket and play them like we play everyone else.”