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Douglass scores 18, but Lady Comets miss 10 FTs, commit 26 turnovers
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Makenna Strycker Mia McKaig Kynzie Hathaway
FULTON — The Pioneer girls baske ball team received both an emotional jolt and a tactical adjustment from coach David McWherter during halftime of their game against host Caston Tuesday.
From there, Makenna Strycker and Mia McKaig took over with some defensive help from sisters Michelle and Rachel Harding, and they rode those adjustments to a 40-32 win Tuesday.
Strycker scored 17 of her game-high 23 points in the second half, and McKaig hit three 3-pointers in the third quarter, including a buzzer-beating 30-footer that capped a 22-0 run, as part of a 13-point night as the Lady Panthers came back from a 24-9 halftime deficit.
Kynzie Hathaway did not score but had a team-high nine rebounds, including an offensive board on a missed Julia McGrew free throw with 19.6 seconds left.
Madi Douglass led Caston with 18 points. She also had six rebounds and five steals, but she did not have a rebound or a steal in the second half.
Grace Colvin, who did not start the second half after picking up three fouls in the first half, added 10.
Pioneer made 16 of 23 free throws while Caston made just 3 of 13. Caston missed all six of its free throw attempts in the second half.
Pioneer won their third straight game and improved to 4-7 overall and 1-2 in the Hoosier North. Caston lost their third straight game and fell to 4-7, 2-3.
“I challenged them,” Pioneer coach David McWherter said. “I just challenged them at halftime, and I told them how much better Madisyn (Douglass) was than anybody else on the court. Madisyn Douglass did a phenomenal job in the first half. And we didn’t quite do everything we needed to do defensively, but at the same time, that was all just them in the second half, playing so much harder and being more physical and just getting after it a little bit.”
McWherter also gave more playing time to twins Michelle and Rachel Harding, and their defensive pressure made Caston work to get into their offense, especially with Colvin out. Caston had 10 turnovers in the third quarter and 26 for the game.
Pioneer started the second half by turning an offensive rebound into a McGrew 16-footer. Strycker split a pair of free throws. McKaig drilled a 3 from the left wing to make it 24-15.
After a Pioneer 30-second timeout, Strycker found McKaig for another 3 from the left wing. Strycker then hit a 17-footer off a Michelle Harding offensive rebound and assist.
Allison Craig fouled Strycker as she attempted a 3, and Strycker made two of three from the line to make it 24-22. Two more Strycker free throws with 1:12 left tied the game.
Strycker hit a 16-footer off the dribble that popped high off the rim and right through the net. With 46 seconds left in the quarter, Pioneer had their first lead at 26-24. After one free throw each from Strycker and McKaig extended the lead to four, Douglass missed two from the line with 8.4 seconds left.
On the next Pioneer possession, Strycker threw a lead pass to Avery Haselby in the corner, who threw it back to McKaig. McKaig then launched a deep 3 as Kylee Logan tried to close out.
McKaig jumped and raised her arms in the air as it went in at the horn.
What had been a 15-point deficit was now a seven-point lead.
“I thought Pioneer did a really good job of coming out and pressuring us,” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “And then our girls did not do a good job of listening to where we put them. We wanted to balance our offense, put a girl on high (post) so you could reverse it and hit middle and then the opposite, and the backdoor layup was there because of how high Pioneer extended their defense. But we could not get the girls to listen to get to their spots to be able to even attack it.”
McKaig later praised McWherter for being a “good motivator.” She said he “tells it like it is.”
“This is like the most important game of the year for us,” McKaig said. “We all really want to win this game, and we have a senior that transferred from Caston, Julia McGrew. We wanted to give her a win against Caston her senior year. We went in there, and we were all disappointed, but Coach really said we’re all making excuses. And like, we have to get rid of all the excuses. … We just had to play as hard as we could, and that’s what we did.”
After not scoring in the third quarter, Douglass hit a trey just seven seconds into the fourth quarter. But Strycker answered with a 3, and Caston never got closer than four after that.
Strycker made all four of her free throws in the final 38.5 seconds.
“We talked about we hadn't accomplished anything at halftime,” coach Douglass said. “It was 0-0 when you start the second half. And we didn’t handle success from the first half very well.”
Coming out in a 3-2 zone, Caston scored the first seven points and held Pioneer scoreless for the first 7:57 until a McKaig free throw broke the ice.
Colvin had five points in the first quarter and then zipped a pass into Olivia Thomas for a layup for the first points of the second quarter. A Douglass 3-point play and then a coast-to-coast layup made it 14-1. When Douglass hit a 3-pointer from between the right wing and right baseline on an inbounds play later in the quarter, it was 20-5.
A Douglass 15-footer and a Douglass driving lefty layup with three seconds left in the half offset four Strycker free throws to keep the lead at 24-9 at halftime.
But Colvin was off the court with three fouls, and Douglass said he could not play the 3-2 zone with Colvin on the bench.
“It was huge because it took that other ballhandler off the court,” coach Douglass said. “A learning experience for her. We kind of sat her there when she got her third. She can’t get her fourth that quick, and she did. … When she goes to the bench, that changes that defense and that lineup quite a bit on rotations.”
Caston also showed off a 2-3 zone, a box-in-one and a triangle-in-two. McWherter later said that Caston’s various defenses “threw us off.”
Caston won the JV game 25-24. Hadlie Coffing scored six points to lead Caston, Trinity Zimmerman had four, Myli Rude had three, Gigi Berry had three, Kylee Logan had three, Ava Russell had three, Natalie Warner had two, and Ellie Zartman had one.
Leah Zeigler led the Pioneer JV with seven, and Madyson Shaffer, Bella Cosgray and Brooklynn Dillman had five each. Emma Juby had two.
Game notes
McKaig received an IHSAA “I Am A Champion Of High School Sports” Pin at school Wednesday for her “exemplary behavior” during the game. “Number 20, Mia McKaig, from Pioneer… exhibited exemplary sportsmanship throughout the game at Caston,” official James Newburn said in his report. “She seemed to have a smile on her face and admitted to having fun during a heated rivalry.”
Caston reserve guard Camila Hernandez-Rios missed the game due to illness.
Pioneer 40, Caston 32
PIONEER (40) (4-7, 1-2)
Makenna Strycker 4 14-17 23, Mia McKaig 4 2-4 13, Julia McGrew 1 0-2 2, Kynzie Hathaway 0 0-0 0, Hannah Zeigler 0 0-0 0, Avery Haselby 0 0-0 0, Michelle Harding 0 0-0 0, Rachel Harding 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 10 16-23 40
CASTON (32) (4-7, 2-3)
Grace Colvin 4 1-2 10, Madi Douglass 7 2-7 18, Gigi Berry 0 0-0 0, Olivia Thomas 1 0-0 2, Allison Craig 0 0-0 0, Hadlie Coffing 0 0-0 0, Kylee Logan 0 0-0 0, Natalie Warner 1 0-4 2, Adyson Steininger 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 3-13 32
Three-point field goals:
Pioneer 4 (McKaig 3, Strycker),
Caston 3 (Douglass 2, Colvin)
Total fouls: Pioneer 17, Caston 22
Fouled out: Warner (CAS), :19.0, fourth
Turnovers: Pioneer 21, Caston 26
Score by quarters
Pioneer 1 8 22 9 – 40
Caston 7 17 0 8 – 32
JV: Caston 25, Pioneer 24
