Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Like the overall series itself, Warsaw's varsity girls basketball team dominated Tuesday's Northern Lakes Conference matchup with visiting Goshen.
Behind a balanced scoring attack and a productive evening at the free throw line, Warsaw cruised to a 61-25 victory at the Tiger Den on a night the school honored the team's five seniors.
Instead of his normal lineup, first-year Tiger coach John Snyder started senior reserves Laura Heiman, Rachel Braddock and Karen Sand alongside normal senior starters Rebekah Reichard and Mallory Hepler.
Reichard scored eight points and pulled down four rebounds, while Braddock scored seven points, Heiman five and Hepler two. Sand didn't score, but did have five rebounds, four assists and a steal.
"It was nice to honor the young ladies for their hard work and commitment to the program," said Snyder, whose team converted 23 of 28 free throws and improved to 10-6 overall, 2-1 in the NLC. "These games (senior night games) can go a couple different directions. You've got kids playing different positions and sometimes you get sloppiness, but I thought that was pretty minimal tonight. We didn't hit some shots we would normally hit, but overall it was a nice effort."
It was an effort good enough to beat the Redskins for the 24th consecutive time. The Tigers lead the overall series with Goshen with a 29-2 record. Goshen's wins over Warsaw came in 1981 and 1982.
A Redskin basket midway through the first quarter cut Warsaw's advantage to 6-4, but a 19-3 run pushed the Tiger lead to 24-7 with 1:55 to play in the first half.
By turning the ball over time after time, the Redskins dug themselves a hole they couldn't climb out of and the deficit only grew as the game went on.
The 36-point margin at the end of the game was Warsaw's biggest lead in the contest.
While the Tigers turned the ball over 13 times, Goshen committed 27 turnovers.
Warsaw scored 32 points off Goshen's turnovers, seven more points than the Redskins scored the entire game.
As good as the Tigers' defense was at times Tuesday, Snyder said afterward, "I'm not even real happy with our defense just yet."
It should be noted that Snyder said that in a positive not, as if he were talking in confidence about how good his team can be.
After going through a coaching change and starting the season 2-4, the worst start in the program's history, Warsaw has won eight of its last 10 games, including a 27-point win Saturday over Lane Tech in the Chicagoland Classic. The two losses in that span came to South Bend St. Joe, the top-ranked 3A team, and Chicago Whitney Young, the No. 1 team in Illinois.
Warsaw led Goshen 26-11 at halftime Tuesday and outscored the Redskins 19-8 in the third quarter for a 45-19 advantage heading into the final frame.
Tiger point guard Julie Seiss scored 12 of her game-high 16 points in the third quarter. Midway through her junior season, Seiss needs 79 points to reach the 1,000-point plateau for her career.
Junior Jennifer Scherer added 10 points and four rebounds for Warsaw, while classmates Kim Clay and Katie Logan scored three and two, respectively.
Goshen, which fell to 4-11 overall and 1-3 in the NLC, got 15 points and 10 rebounds from Katie Szynal. Ashley Hall and Kelly Borden scored three each, while Courtney Rozelle and Erica Emanuel scored two points each.
The Tigers are in action again Saturday at Concord.
WARSAW 61, GOSHEN 25
Goshen 5 6 8 6 - 25
Warsaw 11 15 19 16 - 61
Goshen FG FT R S Pts.
* Eaton 0-4 0-0 2 0 0
* Emanuel 0-0 2-2 0 1 2
* Guilfoos 0-1 0-0 3 1 0
* Szynal 5-13 5-6 10 1 15
* Sherry 0-3 0-0 4 1 0
Rozelle 1-1 0-0 0 0 2
Hall 1-2 0-0 0 0 3
Woodford 0-0 0-0 1 1 0
Borden 1-5 0-0 1 1 3
Falcon 0-4 0-0 2 0 0
H'berger 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Peters 0-0 0-0 1 0 0
Team 0-0 0-0 4 0 0
Totals 8-33 7-10 28 6 25
Warsaw FG FT R S Pts.
* Braddock 2-4 3-4 2 1 7
* Reichard 2-7 4-4 4 0 8
* Hepler 0-5 2-2 2 1 2
* Sand 0-4 0-0 5 1 0
* Heiman 0-1 5-7 2 1 5
DeGeeter 3-5 0-0 1 2 8
Abbitt 0-1 0-0 0 0 0
Seiss 4-6 7-8 1 1 16
Scherer 4-5 1-1 4 0 10
Clay 1-2 1-2 0 1 3
Smith 0-2 0-0 2 1 0
Logan 1-2 0-0 2 1 2
Team 0-0 0-0 3 0 0
Totals 17-44 23-28 28 10 61
Three-point goals - Goshen 2-14 (Borden 1-5, Hall 1-2, Eaton 0-4, Falcon 0-2, Szynal 0-1), Warsaw 4-9 (DeGeeter 2-3, Seiss 1-1, Scherer 1-1, Sand 0-1, Hepler 0-1). Turnovers - Goshen 27, Warsaw 13. Fouls - Goshen 22, Warsaw 10. Fouled out - Emanuel.
JV - Warsaw 26, Goshen 20
Warsaw scoring - Brit Clark 11, Kate Denlinger 7, Jennifer Hathaway 4, Kacie Conley 2, Lindsay Francis 2
