Tigers Dismantle Memorial 72-29
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
DUNLAP -ÊIf there is one thing coaches have in common, it's the ability to spit out cliches like "we have to play our game" or "it was a total team effort."
Another old reliable is, "They're the defending sectional champions. Until someone knocks them off, they have to be considered the favorite."
The first round of Tuesday's Concord 4A Sectional is one case where that last cliche does not apply. Elkhart Memorial, which won the 4A girls basketball sectional last year when it was held at Goshen, entered this year's sectional 6-13. (The sectional sites rotate.) A year ago Elkhart Memorial started its road to the championship by knocking out Warsaw 73-62 in its first game.
This year, the two teams squared off again in the first round. This time, it was all Warsaw. The Tigers routed Memorial 72-29. Memorial finished with more turnovers, 39, than points.
Warsaw meets 14-8 East Noble in Friday's 6:30 p.m. second-round game. East Noble advanced by beating 7-14 Concord 61-41.
Not even a dose of bad news could tame the Tigers on this night. Warsaw, without senior forward Jenna Rooney, who was sick, did not need her 9.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per game on this night. Ten Tigers played at least 11 minutes. No Tiger played more than 18 minutes.
Ashley Wyatt and Kyla Stanley, two seldom-used players during the regular season, led the Tigers in scoring and rebounding.
Wyatt, a 5-foot-4 sophomore guard, played 65 minutes and scored 22 points all season for the varsity team. But it was Wyatt who led the Tigers in scoring on this night with 11. Junior starting guard Kara Kesler added 10, and starting sophomore guard Hilary O'Connell scored nine. Kyla Stanley, a 5-foot-6 junior forward who played 49 minutes and had 16 rebounds all season, led the Tigers in rebounding with seven.
"We planned to try to take away Rooney," said Memorial coach Scott Geist, remembering Rooney's 18 points and 11 rebounds in last year's sectional.
As lopsided as the final score ended up being, the Tigers led 26-15 at halftime. Warsaw's starting five had eight points; so did Wyatt, who hit two three-pointers and scored eight of her 11 in the second quarter. Had Memorial hit free throws, the game would have been even closer; the Crimson Chargers hit 6 of 15 free throws in the first half.
The starting five put the game away in the first two minutes of the second half. Warsaw's full-court press ate up the Crimson Chargers, who turned the ball over three times in the first 63 seconds of the third quarter. The Tigers scored after every turnover, and what was a 26-15 lead at the half ballooned to a 40-15 lead with 5:45 left in the quarter. Starting senior Nerecia Taylor, who scored eight, scored all eight during the 14-0 run.
"Three turnovers in a row, they score on all of them," Geist said. "Boom, there goes the air out of our balloon."
The turnovers continued to pile up for Memorial, which finished the third quarter with 14. The Tigers outscored the Crimson Chargers 28-9 in the third to take a 54-24 lead into the final quarter.
"Our starters were playing scared early," Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst said of the slow start. "Why not play the other girls? Ashley Wyatt came off the bench and hit some big threes and gave us a lead. At halftime, our starters looked at what Ashley did in the first half, and that relaxed them. The first four or five minutes of the third quarter, we played a very good basketball game.
"We played better defense, but also, since we played a lot of players in the first half, we weren't as tired as they were."
Comparing this year's Memorial team to last year's Memorial team would be unfair because they were not the same. Gone was Chakeia Jacvkson and her 17.2 points and 5.0 assists per game. Gone was LaTasha Wolfe and her 14.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. Both graduated. Memorial had two players who averaged more than 5.0 points per game this season, guard Irenna Coleman (16.3 ppg) and center Liz Lewis (13.5 ppg). And one of those, Coleman, sat on the sideline in streetclothes with an ankle injury.
"Quite a big difference," Geist said. "Losing the scorers hurt, but we had two kids on their way to scoring 1000. I didn't think we'd be gangbusters this year, but I realistically thought we'd be .500. The biggest thing has been trying to find a cohesive mesh. The injuries really hurt in the second half. When I look over at the sideline and really don't see anybody who will do a positive thing for us on the court, that hurts. [[In-content Ad]]
DUNLAP -ÊIf there is one thing coaches have in common, it's the ability to spit out cliches like "we have to play our game" or "it was a total team effort."
Another old reliable is, "They're the defending sectional champions. Until someone knocks them off, they have to be considered the favorite."
The first round of Tuesday's Concord 4A Sectional is one case where that last cliche does not apply. Elkhart Memorial, which won the 4A girls basketball sectional last year when it was held at Goshen, entered this year's sectional 6-13. (The sectional sites rotate.) A year ago Elkhart Memorial started its road to the championship by knocking out Warsaw 73-62 in its first game.
This year, the two teams squared off again in the first round. This time, it was all Warsaw. The Tigers routed Memorial 72-29. Memorial finished with more turnovers, 39, than points.
Warsaw meets 14-8 East Noble in Friday's 6:30 p.m. second-round game. East Noble advanced by beating 7-14 Concord 61-41.
Not even a dose of bad news could tame the Tigers on this night. Warsaw, without senior forward Jenna Rooney, who was sick, did not need her 9.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per game on this night. Ten Tigers played at least 11 minutes. No Tiger played more than 18 minutes.
Ashley Wyatt and Kyla Stanley, two seldom-used players during the regular season, led the Tigers in scoring and rebounding.
Wyatt, a 5-foot-4 sophomore guard, played 65 minutes and scored 22 points all season for the varsity team. But it was Wyatt who led the Tigers in scoring on this night with 11. Junior starting guard Kara Kesler added 10, and starting sophomore guard Hilary O'Connell scored nine. Kyla Stanley, a 5-foot-6 junior forward who played 49 minutes and had 16 rebounds all season, led the Tigers in rebounding with seven.
"We planned to try to take away Rooney," said Memorial coach Scott Geist, remembering Rooney's 18 points and 11 rebounds in last year's sectional.
As lopsided as the final score ended up being, the Tigers led 26-15 at halftime. Warsaw's starting five had eight points; so did Wyatt, who hit two three-pointers and scored eight of her 11 in the second quarter. Had Memorial hit free throws, the game would have been even closer; the Crimson Chargers hit 6 of 15 free throws in the first half.
The starting five put the game away in the first two minutes of the second half. Warsaw's full-court press ate up the Crimson Chargers, who turned the ball over three times in the first 63 seconds of the third quarter. The Tigers scored after every turnover, and what was a 26-15 lead at the half ballooned to a 40-15 lead with 5:45 left in the quarter. Starting senior Nerecia Taylor, who scored eight, scored all eight during the 14-0 run.
"Three turnovers in a row, they score on all of them," Geist said. "Boom, there goes the air out of our balloon."
The turnovers continued to pile up for Memorial, which finished the third quarter with 14. The Tigers outscored the Crimson Chargers 28-9 in the third to take a 54-24 lead into the final quarter.
"Our starters were playing scared early," Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst said of the slow start. "Why not play the other girls? Ashley Wyatt came off the bench and hit some big threes and gave us a lead. At halftime, our starters looked at what Ashley did in the first half, and that relaxed them. The first four or five minutes of the third quarter, we played a very good basketball game.
"We played better defense, but also, since we played a lot of players in the first half, we weren't as tired as they were."
Comparing this year's Memorial team to last year's Memorial team would be unfair because they were not the same. Gone was Chakeia Jacvkson and her 17.2 points and 5.0 assists per game. Gone was LaTasha Wolfe and her 14.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. Both graduated. Memorial had two players who averaged more than 5.0 points per game this season, guard Irenna Coleman (16.3 ppg) and center Liz Lewis (13.5 ppg). And one of those, Coleman, sat on the sideline in streetclothes with an ankle injury.
"Quite a big difference," Geist said. "Losing the scorers hurt, but we had two kids on their way to scoring 1000. I didn't think we'd be gangbusters this year, but I realistically thought we'd be .500. The biggest thing has been trying to find a cohesive mesh. The injuries really hurt in the second half. When I look over at the sideline and really don't see anybody who will do a positive thing for us on the court, that hurts. [[In-content Ad]]