GARWOOD HAS CAREER NIGHT IN WIN OVER SOUTHERN WELLS
MONROE— Looking for their first win in years in the ACAC loop, the Southern Wells Raiders entered the Hangar with hopes of hanging with the Adams Central Jets, but an amazing scoring run and outstanding threepoint shooting by the home team helped AC to a 59-25 conference win.
Gracie Garwood led all scorers with 18 points, while coach Kyle Roe got balanced scoring from the rest of his team, with eight other girls knocking down buckets, including ten points from freshman Hailey Heller.
“Gracie is just all heart,” noted coach Roe after the game. “She has set the example on how to be tough and how hard to
The difference in the opening half was on the glass, where Addie Baker and Alexa Brotherton cleaned up most of the Southern Wells misses. At one point the Jets pulled in an offensive rebound on three straight possessions, including a putback by Grace Fisher that put the Jets up late in the first quarter.
Adams Central jumped out to a 6-0 lead, but Zoe Nedler put in buckets on back-to-back-to-back possessions to erase the Jet lead.
Southern Wells struggled early from distance in shooting as Avah Miner could not find her shot in the first half. Things got worse for the Southern Wells star as she was called for an elbow and left the game in the first quarter with two personal fouls.
Gracie Garwood beat the first quarter buzzer with a three, making up for four missed free throws in the quarter, and the Jets led after one, 14-6.
The Jets spread the ball around more in the second quarter and by the time Hailey Heller knocked down her first obligatory three of the game, the Jets led 21-8 as the lead ballooned rather quickly in the ACAC tilt.
The first half ended with Adams Central leading 31-11 with balanced scoring allowing four different Jets to have six or more points.
Southern Wells started out hot in the second half, scoring the first six points of the third quarter and forcing three AC turnovers.
That run was stopped by Garwood, who showed her versatility with a bucket in the paint and then a deep three that was nothing but net from well behind the arc to push the lead back to
HUNTINGTON— Don’t panic.
That seemed to be the lesson the Bellmont girls were trying to teach their fans Friday night at Huntington North when they fell behind 12-0 midway through the first quarter but came back to beat the Vikings 40-37 in a big NE8 matchup. With the win, the Braves improved to 16-4 overall and 4-2 in the conference while Huntington North fell to 14-4 and 3-3.
Marissa Trout scored nine of the Vikings’ first 11 points when she hit three consecutive threepointers in less than 70 seconds, the last one coming from the right corner at the 4:47 mark.
Though Braves’ coach Andy Heim knew that Trout could shoot, he was more concerned about the Vikings’ leading scorer, Taylor Double, a Marian University recruit. But it wasn’t as if the Braves ignored Trout. “I can’t say her shots were wide open,” Heim said. “I don’t even know if they were open. It seemed as if we had a hand coming across, but she was feeling it a little bit.”
On the Vikings’ next possession, Gracie Fields went down hard when she was fouled by Hailey
Cole on a fast break layup, and when she had to leave the game temporarily, Elle McDonald came off the bench to shoot Fields’ free throws and hit one of two to make it 12-0.
Sydney Keane finally put the Braves on the board when she hit one of two free throws after being fouled on a drive with 3:47 left in the period.
Just 17 seconds later, Trout got loose underneath for an easy bucket, and the Vikings had what would turn out to be their biggest lead of the game at 14-1.
Then the Braves got to work. Tessa Spiegel cut to the basket and scored when Ellen Scott hit her with a timely pass, and Hailey Cole notched her first bucket when she got a putback on Spiegel’s missed jumper to make it 14-5 at the first stop.
The teams played nearly even in the second quarter, the Braves taking a 10-9 margin, mainly on the strength of three buckets by sophomore Emily Bleke. The Braves had closed to within five points at 20-15 when Bleke hit a fast break layup with 48 seconds left, but Fields shook off her earlier hard fall to bank a three-pointer from just left of the top of the key with 20 seconds left to put the
Vikings up 23-15.
The Braves scored the first eight points of the third quarter to tie it at 23-23, the tying bucket coming on Ellen Scott’s jumper from behind the free throw line. McDonald made a baseline drive to put the Vikings back on top, but a free throw followed by a drive by Keane gave the Braves their first lead of the game at 26-25. Huntington North scored four of the last six points of the quarter, though, to lead 29-28.
Keane scored four points in the final quarter on four of five free throws, and Hailey Cole scored five on three of four free throws and a postup move, thanks to a nice feed from Keane. That play was an oldfashioned three-point play that gave the Braves their biggest lead of the game at 40-34 with 2:19 left. Double hit a three from way beyond the top of the key with 18 seconds remaining, but that was all of the scoring, and the Braves emerged with the three-point comeback win.
Cole and Emily Bleke led the Braves with 11 points each. Keane added 10. Double led Huntington North with 14. Trout had 11, all in the first quarter.
The Braves won the JV game, 40-36. Swen Laurent led with 16.