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Wilson leads with 16, McCarter adds 12
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Aubrey Wilson Ella McCarter
KNOX — How would the Rochester girls basketball team respond after getting off to a 13-2 lead after one quarter against Southwood in their previous game?
Get off to an even better start.
Aubrey Wilson hit three 3-pointers and scored a game-high 16 points, and Ella McCarter scored 10 of her 12 in the first half as the Lady Zs opened with a 21-3 run and rolled to a 47-28 win over host Knox Wednesday.
Rochester hit six 3-pointers in the first quarter and eight for the game. They led by as many as 31 points for the game and no less than 19 over the final three quarters.
Knox committed 20 turnovers while Rochester had eight.
Wilson also scored 17 in last year’s sectional quarterfinal win over Knox. Her career high is 19 against North Miami in a 42-41 on Nov. 13.
Senior post player Rose Webb had 12 points for Knox. Rochester held Knox leading scorer Portland Minix, who came in averaging 10 points per game, to just three.
Rochester improved to 9-2 going into their showdown with Three Rivers Conference and sectional rival Wabash at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Knox dropped to 3-9.
“We took these guys very seriously, and like I’ve said, we used this game to try to catapult us into the TRC game,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “So you don’t come out and play well in this game… Like last week, we go out and fiddle-fart around with Culver; we probably wouldn’t have done real well with Southwood. So we’ve been really using that as motivation. Hey, you play really well in the nonconference game, that’s going to help you for the conference game.”
McCarter hit a 3-pointer on Rochester’s first possession, and Rylee Clevenger hit a 3 on their second. A Clevenger trey in transition made it 9-0.
Knox freshman point guard Serenity Nava hit a 3, but Rochester followed with another 12-0 burst. Sophomore post Jadyn Field, making her first start of the year, put back an air ball. Then McCarter hit a 17-footer, and Audrey Bolinger drilled two free throws to make it 15-3.
That led to a Knox timeout, but it did not quell the momentum.
McCarter found Wilson for a 3, and then McCarter hit a 3 from the right of the key. Wilson would add another 3 from the left wing later in the quarter.
The shooting led to productive results, but good offense starts with good ballhandling and passing, according to Burrus.
“We were in our two-guard front, and I felt like against their zone – they were in a 2-3 zone – we drove the gap really well up top to where we drew that secondary defender, and we got a lot of looks on that weak-side wing. We moved the ball really well too. We used a couple screens up top that shook us a little bit with Ella. She got free a couple times with the ball screen, and that puts you in a bind too. If we’ve got the ball screen and then we’ve got somebody buried in the corner and then possibly somebody on the wing and that side of the floor is overloaded. … Wilson, that’s a game that we’ve been looking for here lately.
“She’s facilitated more here of late. Anytime she scores and then is facilitating and playing defense the way we need her too, we’re going to be pretty tough to beat. And then obviously, you see we scored 47. It feels like anytime she has games in the double digits, usually we’re in a pretty good spot.”
Knox coach James Adcock complimented Rochester for their quick ball movement in the first quarter.
“I think what took us a little bit by surprise is that they hit six in the first quarter,” Adcock said. “And they weren’t just on the line either. They were a foot and sometimes maybe two feet behind the line, and they were still going in. They were hot in the beginning and didn’t really cool off a whole lot either. So it’s just kind of the way the game flowed, and we were just trying to get out of the hole and had a hard time doing it.”
Adcock also said Rochester “moved well” defensively and had good height on the back row of their 2-3 zone.
“What I liked about Rochester’s team is that they were aggressive on every play,” Adcock said. “They were aggressive on every rebound. They went after the ball. And they never gave up. And I just commend them on that effort there.”
A Brailyn Hunter basket in the post and a Wilson 3 from the right wing made it 29-5, and the lead was 35-12 at halftime.
Knox went on an eight-minute field goal drought covering the second and third quarters. A Wilson pullup, a Field layup on a screen-and-roll, a McCarter pullup and a Hunter 3-pointer from the left corner got the lead to 44-13.
Rochester 47, Knox 28
ROCHESTER (9-2)
Aubrey Wilson 6 1-2 16, Rylee Clevenger 2 0-0 6, Brailyn Hunter 2 2-4 7, Ella McCarter 4 2-2 12, Jadyn Field 2 0-0 4, Emma Mathias 0 0-0 0, Constance Velez 0 0-0 0, Kyla Conley 0 0-0 0, Audrey Bolinger 0 2-2 2, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 16 7-10 47
KNOX (28) (3-9)
Serenity Nava 2 0-2 6, Portland Minix 1 0-0 3, Riley Taylor 2 0-0 5, Rylan Jordan 0 0-0 0, Rose Webb 5 2-3 12, Presley Messer 0 0-0 0, Lexi Salyers 0 0-0 0, Elise Wolff 1 0-2 2, Nora Stone 0 0-2 0
TEAM: 11 2-9 28
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 8 (Wilson 3, McCarter 2, Clevenger 2, Hunter),
Knox 4 (Nava 2, Taylor, Minix)
Total fouls: Rochester 7, Knox 8
Turnovers: Rochester 8, Knox 20
Score by quarters
Rochester 24 11 9 3 – 47
Knox 5 7 3 13 – 28
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