SOUTH WHITLEY — With the Huntington North Lady Vikings surging, the Whitko girls basketball team got a huge lift from senior Kelly Reiff Friday night in South Whitley. Seeing its 34-28 lead cut to 34-33 with 1:26 remaining in the third quarter, Reiff came off the bench to hit two treys in 47 seconds, then freshman Brianna Cumberland hit another with five seconds left, increasing the lead to 43-35 and propelling Whitko to a 57-51 victory “(Reiff) came off the bench late in the third quarter and hit two threes cold,” Whitko coach Brandon Bradley said of the senior, who finished the game with 13 points and five rebounds. “That was huge. It had gotten to a point where we were getting a little bit stale and they were slowing but surely catching up. “With her, shooting the basketball has not been an issue,” Bradley added. The win over the previously unbeaten Lady Vikings (2-1) improves the Whitko Lady Wildcats to 3-1 on the season, but Bradley knows there’s still work to be done. Playing with some inexperienced players, Whitko got the victory despite 29 turnovers and numerous ill-advised shots in the fourth quarter. Up 43-35 going into the fourth, the Lady Wildcats got caught up in an up-tempo pace, shooting 15 of its 40 total field goals in the quarter, giving Huntington North more possessions than necessary. “Our young kids are used to just playing ball,” Bradley said. “Now, in a structured environment, they have to understand score, time, situation.” Freshman Aly Reiff showed some inexperience, taking a few quick treys in the final quarter, but clearly showed her talent in the game. In just her fourth varsity contest, she had 21 points, 15 rebounds, five steals and four assists, and went 6 of 7 from the field in the first half. Averaging 18.3 points per game this year, it’s the freshman’s overall game that Bradley has been most impressed with. “The thing getting lost in her play, is that she’s a pass-first player,” he said. “A lot of scoring is coming off offensive rebounds, off steals. Maybe she starts at the wing, (passes the ball), then slices through and gets the ball back in the interior. A lot of times, people only see point totals and they think, ‘Oh, that’s their scorer.’ No, she’s our distributor, who can score.” Along with the Reiff sisters’ production, Whitko also got 10 points from sophomore Jennifer Reiff (no relation) and senior Jordan Hall posted nine points and eight boards. For Huntington North, senior Paige Coolman had 17 points, nine rebounds and six steals. In all, Huntington North had 18 steals, most of which were created by the Lady Wildcats forcing the ball into the teeth of the Lady Vikings’ zone defense. Up next for Whitko is another Class 4A team, as it travels to 0-3 Warsaw Friday. Whitko and Warsaw have each played Huntington North, with Warsaw losing in Huntington 37-26, a point total Whitko had eclipsed by halftime. Last season, a Warsaw team that wound up with a 24-2 record posted a 53-45 win in South Whitley, and according to Bradley, that loss may give his team more confidence than its win over Huntington North. “Last year was the first time (since 2008) that we played them to within single digits,” he said of Warsaw, which is off to its worst start in program history. “We were down two with three minutes to go last year. Just that confidence will help. We obviously have to prepare for it. We can’t just go into it blind, thinking, ‘We were close last year, so we’ll be closer this year.’ We still have a lot of preparation to do.” And after seeing the mentality his girls showed following the win over the Lady Vikings, Bradley’s feeling good. “After the game, the first thing we talked about was being more disciplined on defense and stop fouling as much,” he said. “Offensively, we also have to be stronger with the ball. That’s what we talked about. Not Warsaw or winning other games. We focused on those two things and every one of them was in tune with that. They weren’t in there celebrating, they were in there talking about how they can get better.”
