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McCarter leads with 15, Wilson adds 13 as Lady Zs tally season high
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Ella McCarter Jayla Miller Kyla Conley
The Rochester girls basketball team came into their game with visiting Logansport at the RHS gym having made 103 3-pointers in 17 previous games.
They had made at least three 3-pointers in each game.
Against the Lady Berries, they made just one 3-pointer but scored a season high in points and cruised to a 50-18 win over the Lady Berries to break a two-game losing streak and improve to 13-5.
Hitting pullup jumpers off high ball screens and also driving the ball to the hoop, senior Ella McCarter scored a game-high 15 points, and junior point guard Aubrey Wilson added 13.
Jadyn Field made her first start of the season and contributed nine points and six rebounds.
Kellyn Cripe and Goldie Kitchell had five points each for the Lady Berries, who lost their fourth straight game and dropped to 2-16.
Cripe provided the Lady Berry highlight when she swished a 38-footer at the halftime buzzer. That was Logansport’s only made 3-pointer, and it was their only points of the second quarter.
It also broke a 17-0 Rochester run.
Rochester beat Logansport 52-24 at the Berry Bowl last year, and the 52 points in that game were a season high last year.
Rochester coach Joel Burrus referenced a 45-27 win over Culver on Dec. 4 as a point of contrast. Rochester made 10 3-pointers in that game.
“We lived and died by the 3 in that game, and you looked up, and we just couldn’t extend our lead against them,” Burrus said. “You know, you’re like Culver’s still hanging around, and it’s 10, 12 points. We talked about that, and you saw Ella obviously attack early. Drove gaps. Wilson drove gaps.”
With Field in the starting lineup for the first time, Brailyn Hunter came off the bench. Burrus said that Hunter was nursing a minor injury, but he did not specify what the injury was. Hunter entered the game less than three minutes into the game and scored on a putback to complete a game-opening 7-0 run.
Gracie Risley hit a 19-footer from the left of the key to break a four-minute scoreless drought to start the game, but McCarter hit two free throws, and Field scored on a putback and hit two free throws to make it 13-2.
Rochester’s fourth second-chance bucket of the quarter came from Wilson and made it 15-2.
Kitchell split a pair of free throws, but Rochester responded with McCarter, Rylee Clevenger and Audrey Bolinger forming a triangle on the right side of the court and exchanging passes.
Finally, McCarter kicked out to Clevenger for what turned out to be the Lady Zs’ lone 3-pointer.
On the next possession, a McCarter pullup jumper with two seconds left in the quarter made it 20-3.
McCarter hit two more pullups off the dribble to start the scoring in the second quarter.
Then came some nifty passing: McCarter broke the defense off the dribble, dropped a bounce pass off to her left to Wilson, who then dropped another bounce pass to an open Hunter for a layup.
McCarter then deflected a pass and hit ahead to Wilson for a transition bucket to make it 28-3. A Wilson free throw, a McCarter coast to coast layup after a rebound and another Wilson free throw capped the run and preceded Cripe’s long-range bomb.
“They do a nice job with pressure,” Logansport coach Chris Keisling, a former Rochester assistant principal and principal, said. “This is a year. I’ve always kind of felt that with this Rochester group. I hate to say a team that this is their year, but I really think it kind of can be here. They’ve got kids back from last year that were a .500 team. Now they’re sitting with 13 wins and five losses. I think a lot has been their defense. They’ve got quick hands and extend out on the pressure well. And so certainly it’s a factor, a big factor. And our young kids have got so much to learn with facing teams like that. And so hats off to coach Burrus and his staff. They’ve got them playing well.
“And of course, offensively, they’re solid too. They’ve got several kids who can score the ball – good shooters, good drivers and all the things that make a good team.”
Rochester then scored the first nine points of the second half, and when Wilson sunk a free throw with 4:00 left in the third quarter to make it 41-6, that triggered a running clock per the IHSAA Mercy Rule.
Kyla Conley hit an 18-footer from the left wing in the fourth quarter for her first career varsity points.
Burrus praised freshmen Conley, Jayla Miller, Emma Mathias and Constance Velez. Rochester does not have a JV, so lopsided games are their only chance to get meaningful playing time.
Miller also got a basket off a rim run and a McCarter assist in the this quarter.
“I think the big thing is when you have kids in a situation like that, it says a lot about them that they’ve stuck it out,” Burrus said. “They could very easily have said at Christmas we’re going to go do something else because we’re sick of sitting on the bench because we’re sick of sitting the bench. But they’ve done a really good job of giving their best effort in practice and helping our top six, seven kids. And I think they’ve improved by facing those kids in practice every day. Obviously for Conley to hit that shot late, you know, our girls are flipping out because she hits some of those in practice on our girls, and then I’m flipping out. So it’s nice to see her step up and hit that.”
Rochester 50, Logansport 18
LOGANSPORT (18) (2-16)
Kellyn Cripe 2 0-0 5, Madyson Baumgardner 0 0-2 0, Rylinn Spradling 0 0-0 0, Lily Clem 0 0-0 0, Goldie Kitchell 2 1-3 5, Maeda Bradbury 0 0-0 0, Gracie Risley 1 0-0 2, Jazmin Quinones 1 1-1 3, Katelynn Spradling 0 0-0 0, Khloe Wells 0 3-4 3
TEAM: 6 5-10 18
ROCHESTER (50) (13-5)
Aubrey Wilson 4 5-11 13, Rylee Clevenger 2 0-0 5, Ella McCarter 7 1-1 15, Audrey Bolinger 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 3 3-4 9, Emma Mathias 0 0-0 0, Brailyn Hunter 2 0-0 4, Constance Velez 0 0-0 0, Kyla Conley 1 0-0 2, Jayla Miller 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 20 9-16 50
Three-point field goals:
Logansport 1 (Cripe),
Rochester 1 (Clevenger)
Total fouls: Logansport 16, Rochester 14
Turnovers: Logansport 20, Rochester 8
Score by quarters
Logansport 3 3 4 8 – 18
Rochester 20 12 13 5 – 50
