Shen Girls power their way to a 66-33 win against Columbia
EAST GREENBUSH, NY » The Shen Girls’ momentum has been building and building over the last week, now with a win over Columbia, the Plainsmen haven’t put themselves on cruise control.
“A win always improves confidence,” said Meghan Huerter. “In this kind of game we get our second string players in, just to get them on the floor. I think they get a chance to see what they need to work on and what they are good at, so that helps them boost confidence and gets them engaged in games that are going our way more than the other team.”
Shen cruised past Columbia 66-33 Friday night at Columbia High School. Huerter finished the game with 19 points to lead the Plainsmen in the win.
“We tried some different things in the second half. We took our press off and got some kids in to play and grinded it out at the end,” said Shen Head Coach Joe Murphy. “We tried some different things in the third quarter with the starting group that we haven’t tried this year, but it’s a good opportunity to do so in those types of games.”
Columbia came out with high energy on defense to start the game. It looked as if that energy was going to be something they could build off of and put into the offense as the game progressed. Despite the hard effort on the boards from the Blue Devils, Shen charged along to a 16- 4 effort in the quarter.
A 29 point second quarter powered Shen to the 45-14 lead at halftime that gave them the cushion to get comfortable and test out some things on the floor.
“We’re improving our zone offense,” said Huerter. “They played a zone the whole game and we had trouble getting into the paint as much as we liked and to get the ball down low instead of shooting three’s. We can always improve stuff, there’s nothing we can be satisfied about.”
Huerter continued on to say that Shen is never content with where there game is at, whether it be shooting, defending, or rebounding.
“Our shooting, our ball handling, our communicating, our defense. Every game is a learning point where we can learn from every situation, every opponent. With this game we need to keep grinding and keep getting better and try to be prepared for different teams, different defenses.”
Huerter knocked down five three’s in the game. Guard Simone Walker knocked down two. Along with her outside shooting, Walker showed off her ability to kick the ball to teammates in tough situations and her overall vision on the court. Once the game was in hand, Murphy decided to give a chance to some players who had not gotten as much game time this season.
“We are looking for people to be productive when they come in and knowtheir role,” said Murphy. “Bri Carey came in and had a couple nice drives at the end there. It’s good to see a couple of those bench kids come in and the second unit did a phenomenal job on the boards in the fourth quarter.”
Columbia finished the game off strong, scoring 14 points and building on some things to be proud of.
Leah Phillips led the Blue Devils with 10 points and Lauren Filien added nine.
Shen is now 11- 0 this season with the win and 7- 0 against Suburban Council opponents. Columbia falls to 2-8 and 1- 4 in the Suburban Council.
“Credit to Columbia, they played with a lot of energy tonight,” said Murphy. “They made things difficult for us at first. We just came off two really tough games against Averill Park and Colonie, two really good games this weekend, it’s a long week of school with a break next week, so all those things tie into a lethargic effort at times, but I think our kids started off slow and responded well in the second quarter.”