ROCHESTER – Class 2A No. 1 Whitko started five seniors in its Three Rivers Conference girls basketball game at Rochester Saturday night. The Lady Zebras don’t have a senior on the roster, and the resulting 53-25 Lady Wildcat win was no surprise. The Whitko win was built on a stingy defense and a well-balanced offense. The game was the third time the Lady Wildcats held an opponent to fewer than 30 points this season. Rochester scored just eight points in the second half, and was held to two in the third quarter. Rochester junior center Kennedy Musselman, averaging 11 points a game, used her height to her advantage in scoring 13 first-half points. If Whitko has an Achilles’ heel, it’s lack of size in the middle. “We want to front the post, and I thought in the first half, early on with her first two or three baskets, we were late getting there,” said Whitko coach Brandon Bradley. “Once we adjusted to that we were late getting to lob help, and finally we adjusted to all of it, and (Musselman) only had two baskets in the second half. “We haven’t played against true posts like her that often, and we have to adjust to different personnel. That and size is always going to be an issue for us.” The Lady Wildcats kept Rochester guards Maci Brown and Morgan Ruff in check. The duo came in averaging nine points each per game, and Whitko held them to two field goals, no three-pointers, and six points between them. “We scouted (Brown) as their primary shooter for the entire season, with the number of attempts and makes she has she’s one of the top shooters in those two categories in the conference,” Bradley said. “There was nothing special specifically toward her. We’ve just committed to playing an aggressive man-to-man defense with a lot of rotation and communication. I don’t see a lot of girls teams doing that, and it catches people off-guard. I want to get it to where it’s hard to replicate us in practice.” Offensively, Whitko was again led by seniors Aly Reiff and Brianna Cumberland, who finished with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Cumberland hit a long, buzzer-beating three to close out the first half, and Reiff fell just short of a double-double with nine rebounds before exiting with 2:43 left in the game. But the Lady Wildcats had great balance in their scoring. Up until Bradley cleared his bench late in the game, all eight Lady Wildcats who played had scored on at least two trips down the floor. “Aly is as humble of a star as I’ve ever coached in 21 years. She was great the way she passed, the way she created for others, and we’ve got kids that can hit shots. You just don’t see it a lot because Aly can get to the rim and Brianna can get rhythm jumpers in our offense,” Bradley said. “(Reiff) has a lot of confidence in the rest of the team, and I think that’s great. We have to hit those shots, and so far this year, we have.” Now 14-2 overall and 4-0 in the conference, Whitko will host 3A No. 10 Norwell Thursday night in a non-conference game.
