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Lady Zs force 30 turnovers, score season-high 58 points
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
The Rochester girls basketball team set a season-high for points scored in a game against visiting Taylor and a record for most points scored in the Joel Burrus era as coach Monday.
In fact, they set it before the end of the third quarter.
Feasting off the Lady Titans’ 30 turnovers and hitting nine 3-pointers, Rochester rolled to a 58-29 win that improved their record to 15-6.
Rylee Clevenger made five 3-pointers and scored 21 points, Aubrey Wilson had 13, and Ella McCarter had 12 for the Lady Zs.
Rochester’s previous season high for points was 50 against Loganport on Jan. 15. They scored 52 points on two previous occasions under Burrus, who became the coach in 2022.
They led this game 52-22 after three quarters.
“I thought for the most part, we got the looks we wanted to get,” Burrus said. “Obviously, the first quarter was where my distaste (occurred) in our just not being able to put the ball in the basket. But I will say this. … I told them in there at the half, would you guys come out after halftime here and think about that first quarter, the start, and let’s be better at the start of the second half.”
Jallainah Harris had a double-double for Taylor (5-17) with 17 points and 11 rebounds, but no other teammate had more than four points.
Rochester made seven more 3-pointers than Taylor did and also outscored them 11-1 from the foul line.
Rochester went on a 26-0 run covering the first and second quarters to build a 31-5 lead. Clevenger, who hit three treys during that run, outscored the entire Taylor team 14-11 in the first half.
McCarter later contributed a flurry of big plays. Starting at the 4:45 mark of the first half, she blocked a shot, saved the ball inbounds, hit a 3-pointer, got a steal and drove all the way for a layup, all within a 30-second span.
That made it 23-5, and two Wilson free throws, and two Clevenger 3-pointers – one off a Field assist – capped the run.
“We’ve talked about all season that we can’t really be reliant on making shots all the time, so that’s why our defense brings a lot to the table,” Clevenger said.
Taylor was playing a man-to-man defense after Manchester utilized a man-to-man in beating the Lady Zs 40-31 on Saturday.
“Obviously, Manchester didn’t really have much height, so we needed to look for our posts a little bit more, and then we became reliant on kickout 3s, and we really didn’t knock those down Saturday night, so we need to try to get it in the post more, and once they’re open and can make moves, then they can kick back out with a clean pass.” Clevenger said.
Rochester also had runs of 8-0 and 11-0 in the second half, and the game went to a running clock per the IHSAA Mercy Rule with 4:20 left after a Jadyn Field putback on a missed free throw extended the lead to 58-22.
“It was also nice to have a game like this tonight,” Burrus said. “You look at us in the sectional, we’ve got the toughest schedule out of anybody in the sectional. To have a game like this tonight, we don’t have very many of these games. So it was one that we could kind of talk as coaches about what we were looking for, some things we wanted to work on. And then obviously, we have a major task ahead of us Thursday night with Northfield, who’s probably playing the best basketball out of any 1A team.”
Rochester used nine different players. Freshman Emma Mathias missed the game due to illness, and Burrus later revealed that McCarter and Field had been ill.
Clevenger later said that she had been sick.
“I came home from my internship, and I did not feel good at all,” Clevenger said. “I had a fever, took a nap, woke up, checked my temp again, and I still had a fever, so I just had to come in and roll with it, deal with it. I wasn’t going to miss out on the game, so just play through it.”
Rochester 58, Taylor 29
TAYLOR (29) (5-17)
Jallainah Harris 8 0-0 17, Ma’Leigha Smith 1 0-2 2, CeCi Howard 0 0-0 0, Trinity Calvert 2 0-2 4, Amelia Collins 0 1-2 1, Kiera Phelps 1 0-0 3, Destiny Skinner 0 0-0 0, Vanessa Davidson 0 0-0 0, RaeJean Bell 1 0-0 2, McKenzie Hazel 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 1-6 29
ROCHESTER (58) (15-6)
Aubrey Wilson 3 6-7 13, Rylee Clevenger 8 0-0 21, Brailyn Hunter 2 4-7 8, Ella McCarter 4 1-2 12, Audrey Bolinger 0 0-0 0, Constance Velez 0 0-2 0, Kyla Conley 0 0-0 0, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 2 0-0 4
TEAM: 19 11-18 58
Three-point field goals:
Taylor 2 (Harris, Phelps),
Rochester 9 (Clevenger 5, McCarter 3, Wilson)
Total fouls: Taylor 14, Rochester 7
Turnovers: Taylor 30, Rochester 13
Score by quarters
Taylor 5 6 11 7 – 29
Rochester 10 24 18 6 – 58
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