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McKaig leads with 15, Haselby also scores in double figures
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Makenna Strycker Rachel Harding
ROYAL CENTER — Pioneer girls basketball coach David McWherter enjoys being a head coach again, and led by the guard duo of Mia McKaig and Makenna Strycker, it was all smiles for the Lady Panthers in a home win against LaPorte Saturday.
McKaig hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored a game-high 15 points, and Strycker had 14 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for her first career triple-double as Pioneer routed LaPorte 67-32.
Avery Haselby added 12 points off the bench, and Rachel Harding added nine off the bench – they were career highs for both Haselby and Harding – as Pioneer won their second straight game to improve to 3-7.
LaPorte fell to 0-11. Pioneer beat LaPorte for the fourth straight season since they were added to the schedule in the 2021-22 season.
Pioneer closed the first quarter on a 10-0 run to build a 15-4 lead, and they went on another 16-0 run in the second quarter to build the lead to 33-10.
Strycker repeatedly penetrated into the lane to score or set up teammates. Pioneer coach David McWherter told Strycker out of the halftime locker room that he would like her to get 10 assists. She did that number one better.
McWherter told the other players the spots they needed to be on the court in order to be available for Strycker’s passes. He also said that Julia McGrew worked some dribble handoff plays with Strycker to get Strycker going downhill at the basket.
“I think we got some easy looks at the basket,” McWherter said. “We got some penetration and so forth, which helps us a lot if we can get her in the open court. … I just thought we did step up defensively a little bit better. You know there for a little while, at the beginning of that quarter, I didn’t know if they were going to come back into it or if we were going to stretch the lead. I think our defense just keeps getting better and better each game.”
Junior post player Hannah Zeigler scored six of her eight points in the third quarter as the lead stretched to 51-25.
Haselby and McKaig each drained 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and the game finished under a running clock per the IHSAA Mercy Rule. The 67 points were a season high and the most for Pioneer in a game since a 70-33 win over West Central in January 2023.
“Breaking the defense down and then working together as a team,” Strycker said of the offense. “As soon as you drive in the lane and they didn’t stop the other side, it was wide open. You can pass it, and they were hitting their layups. … It was everybody contributing.”
Haselby, a sophomore, is also a long-armed defender capable of flying in from the weak side for steals.
“Last year, I had her on JV, and I used to tell her a lot of little things like that,” McWherter said. “It’s like, ‘Go get yourself a steal here. Anticipate. Be thinking a play ahead.’ … And she did a good job of that tonight. I really like the effort that the girls gave throughout the night.”
McWherter is a head coach for the first time since 2015. He was the JV coach and varsity assistant under interim coach Adam Berry last year.
“I’m enjoying it a lot,” McWherter said. “That was the whole reason why I came back again. Because last year, I just told Berry, ‘I can’t end. I can’t quit.’ I’ve got the itch again. I just love the competitiveness and so forth. At the beginning of the season, I got on the girls quite a bit and so forth. I told them, ‘I don’t want to lose, girls.’ I said I’m just that competitive. Please don’t take it personally when I get on you. … And it’s been so much nicer now. I think they realize that I just want to compete. Whether we’re winning games or not, sometimes we’re going to go up against teams that are just better than us, but it’s all about the competitiveness and making yourself a better person, and the girls are really working at that, and that’s what I’m really proud of.”
Strycker said the improvement started with a 44-38 overtime loss to Lewis Cass on Dec. 3. Pioneer trailed that game by 16 points at one point. Lewis Cass made semistate in Class 2A last year.
“The Lewis Cass game definitely just opened stuff up for us,” Strycker said. “As long as we knew we could hang with that good of a team, it was such a confidence booster for all of us. I mean, we realized what we could do, and we realized how we could work well together, and it’s just helped us a lot these past couple games.”
Pioneer 67, LaPorte 32
LAPORTE (32) (0-11)
Lexi Surowiec 2 0-0 5, Siona Ohime 2 0-0 6, Dallas Richey 0 0-0 0, Keilaeyah Roundtree 3 5-7 11, Lyric Burton 0 2-4 2, Sammy Shelton 2 0-0 5, Hollie Johnson 0 0-0 0, Hayley Poulos 1 0-0 2, Maura Grant 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 10 7-11 32
PIONEER (67) (3-7)
Makenna Strycker 4 6-13 14, Mia McKaig 6 1-2 15, Julia McGrew 1 0-0 2, Kynzie Hathaway 3 0-1 6, Hannah Zeigler 3 2-2 8, Brooklynn Dillman 0 0-0 0, Avery Haselby 5 0-0 12, Madyson Shaffer 0 0-0 0, Michelle Harding 0 1-2 1, Rachel Harding 4 1-2 9, Leah Zeigler 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 26 11-22 67
Three-point field goals:
LaPorte 5 (Surowiec 2, Ohime 2, Shelton),
Pioneer 4 (McKaig 2, Haselby 2)
Total fouls: LaPorte 19, Pioneer 11
Turnovers: LaPorte 19, Pioneer 10
Score by quarters
LaPorte 4 8 13 7 – 32
Pioneer 15 19 17 16 – 67
