.png)
Wilson player of game vs. Kouts, Field player of game vs. Clinton Prairie
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
KOUTS — The Rochester girls basketball team won both of its games at the Small
School Classic at Kouts’ Coach Marty Gaff Gymnasium on Friday to improve to 12-3 on the season.
Rochester beat Clinton Prairie 36-30 in the semifinals before topping Kouts 49-29 to win the tournament title for the second straight year.
Championship: Rochester 49, Kouts 29
The championship game with Kouts was tied 5-5 with 3:15 left in the first quarter before the Lady Zs went on a 24-0 run that lasted until the 6:54 mark of the third quarter.
Aubrey Wilson hit three 3-pointers and scored a game-high 18 points, and Rylee
Clevenger sizzled from long range, hitting four 3-pointers, all within a two-and-half-minute span in the second and third quarters, and scoring 12. When Clevenger drained a 3 from the left baseline on the second possession of the third quarter, it capped a 24-0 Lady Z stampede that bumped the lead to 29-5.
The Lady Zs were playing their second game of the day after taking a 15-day break.
Brailyn Hunter also hit a pair of 3s and scored nine.
Rochester led by as many as 25 points in the fourth quarter.
Tournament organizers named Wilson the player of the game. She outscored the entire Kouts team 9-5 in the first half. She hit a pair of triples and added another nine points in the third quarter.
“It feels pretty good, especially because we didn’t start off on a great start in the first game, so we really had to pick it up,” Wilson said. “And we played great the first half on defense, and coach (Joel) Burrus was really excited for us right there, so we had to keep it going.”
In addition, Ella McCarter and Clevenger were named co-tournament MVPs. McCarter had four points and 12 rebounds against Kouts.
Bella Birky scored 12 points for Kouts, who had their five-game winning streak snapped and who fell to 8-7.
“I think defensively it was,” Burrus said when asked if it was as well as the team had played this season. “We didn’t think we played real well defensively. I mean, all around, we talked about the layoff in the first game, but I felt like tonight, our defense was really keyed in. We worked on some things. You never want to look ahead, but we knew if we got to Kouts, we needed to be ready for them, so we worked this past week in practice on some of their stuff defensively and some of the things we knew that they were going to do. And then obviously, their personnel, Birky out front, she’s a really good guard, really quick.
“We felt like if we could keep her in front of us, we’d be in a good spot.”
Ellie Nemeth’s putback tied the game for Kouts, but Wilson raced to the other end after the made basket and beat the Kouts defense for a layup to give the Lady Zs a 7-5 lead they would never surrender.
Hunter hit a 3 from the left wing, and Wilson hit a driving banker with seven seconds left in the quarter to make it 12-5.
In the second quarter, McCarter drove and found Jadyn Field for a layup. Clevenger and Audrey Bolinger worked a screen-and-roll for a layup, and Wilson scored in transition off another Clevenger assist. A Field putback made it 20-5.
Clevenger put on a shooting exhibition: First, she hit a three from just off the right corner with nine seconds left in the half to get the lead to 23-5 at halftime.
On the first three possessions of the second half, she drilled three straight treys from the left corner against Kouts’ 2-3 zone, none of the shots even touching the rim.
“Normally, when we’re in man-to-man (offense), we just do our regular motion screen-away,” Clevenger said. “But we noticed that they shifted back to a zone, so we went ‘runner.’ I’ll run corners, but then Brailyn will stretch out, so we almost had a two-on-two look.
“When we have me and Bray both in the corners, it stretches the floor out a lot more. And then we can also get it in the high post, and we can have a diver and also the corners working out.”
Meanwhile, Rochester’s 2-3 zone harassed Kouts while not fouling. They committed only two fouls in the first three quarters and held the Fillies to four free throw attempts.
“They just pressure you all the time,” Kouts coach Tim Schwartz said. “And that’s the thing. They’re always in your face. If you drive into the middle, there’s girls coming around you. We did a poor job of moving the ball and moving ourselves as well. That’s probably the big thing – probably a little bit of both, where they’re high pressure on us, and we’re not moving the ball very well and not rebounding or anything, and it turns into a lot of stops for them.”
In the consolation game, North White defeated Clinton Prairie 30-23.
Rochester 49, Kouts 29
ROCHESTER (49) (12-3)
Aubrey Wilson 7 1-2 18, Rylee Clevenger 4 0-0 12, Brailyn Hunter 3 1-2 9, Ella McCarter 2 0-0 4, Audrey Bolinger 1 0-0 2, Emma Mathias 0 0-0 0, Constance Velez 0 0-0 0, Kyla Conley 0 0-0 0, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 2 0-6 4
TEAM: 19 2-10 49
KOUTS (29) (8-7)
Ellah Young 0 0-0 0, Bella Birky 5 0-0 12, Sophia Tikalsky 2 0-2 6, Ellie Nemeth 3 0-2 6, Elizabeth VanKley 0 0-0 0, Kayla Hoover 0 0-0 0, Alyssa Twedt 1 0-0 3, Leah Croff 0 0-0 0, Lilli Earle 1 0-0 2, Anna Overholt 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 12 0-4 29
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 9 (Clevenger 4, Wilson 3, Hunter 2),
Kouts 5 (Birky 2, Tikalsky 2, Twedt)
Total fouls: Rochester 7, Kouts 14
Turnovers: Rochester 20, Kouts 16
Score by quarters
Rochester 12 11 21 5 – 49
Kouts 5 0 17 7 – 29
Semifinals: Rochester 36, Clinton Prairie 30
Field came off the bench to score a career-high 15 points and grab 11 rebounds, and McCarter took advantage of a double possession as the Lady Zs held off Clinton Prairie in the semifinals.
Rochester improved to 11-3, and Clinton Prairie dropped to 6-8.
Clinton Prairie played without senior Abbey Swan, their leading scorer and rebounder.
Tournament organizers gave Field the player of the game medal after that game.
McCarter finished with seven, and Clevenger and Wilson had six each.
Taylor Morgan scored nine points, and Ava Shockley added eight for Clinton Prairie, who committed 24 turnovers.
“I think some of it was unforced, but they did run and jump a couple times that got into some of our players’ heads, but a lot of times, we were just looking away before we caught the ball, and it just led to some bad turnovers at bad times,” Clinton Prairie coach Kale Morris said.
The teams were meeting for the first time since Clinton Prairie knocked the Lady Zs out of the 2021 regional semifinals at Frankton.
McCarter hit a 3-pointer with six seconds to go in the first half that put Rochester ahead for good at 21-19. Rochester had the possession arrow, so they got the ball back, and McCarter hit another 3-pointer on the first possession of the second half that increased the lead to five.
A Field bucket in the post made it 26-19.
Shockley hit a 3-pointer as the Lady Gophers stayed within four, but Clinton Prairie could not keep Field off the offensive glass.
Three consecutive Field putbacks helped get the lead to as big as 32-22 in the fourth quarter.
Clinton Prairie would rally within 33-30 on Morgan’s 3-pointer with 24.8 seconds left, but McCarter made it a two-possession game with a free throw with 23.6 seconds left, and Wilson would make two more free throws with 15.2 seconds left to complete the scoring.
But the story of the game was Field’s dominance in the paint. This marked her fifth career double-digit scoring game. Her previous career high was 11, set on three separate occasions last year.
With Wilson in foul trouble – she picked up two fouls in the first 1:46 of the game and her third later in the first half – her production was critical.
“Her minutes ramped up today too, which we had to ramp her minutes up some because of the Wilson situation with the fouls,” Burrus said afterwards. “That put us in a little bit of a bind. I tried to trust that we could get through there with two (fouls). As a coach sometimes, you get burned. I probably should have sat her, but hey, it didn’t cost us the game. The next time that happens, I probably will get her out, but I thought Field did a really good job. Active on both ends and she always plays hard. I think she’s starting to get her feet under her more and getting more back into a flow. You saw that Northwestern game, but then you have this break. This is like preseason practice all over again. … Good to win when you don’t play well.”
She had ACL surgery on Aug. 14 and did not make her season debut until she played against Southwood on Dec. 7.
“I’d say she’s gotten even stronger and better,” Wilson said of Field, her fellow sophomore and long-time teammate. “Especially during the summer, we went undefeated. So her coming back from that injury and surgery, she’s become really stronger, I think. So it’s really big for her and us.”
In the other first round game, Kouts handled North White 43-24 to advance to the title game on their home court.
Rochester 36, Clinton Prairie 30
ROCHESTER (36) (11-3)
Aubrey Wilson 1 3-6 6, Rylee Clevenger 2 0-0 6, Brailyn Hunter 0 0-0 0, Ella McCarter 2 1-2 7, Audrey Bolinger 1 0-0 2, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 7 1-4 15
TEAM: 13 5-12 36
CLINTON PRAIRIE (30) (6-8)
Taylor Morgan 3 2-5 9, Hyleigh Wilson 2 0-0 5, Ava Shockley 2 2-2 8, Natalee King 1 0-0 2, Alexis Perez 1 0-0 2, Lily Coleman 0 0-2 0, Maddison German-Potter 0 0-0 0, Avery Lennon 1 2-2 4
TEAM: 10 6-11 30
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 5 (McCarter 2, Clevenger 2, A. Wilson),
Clinton Prairie 4 (Shockley 2, Morgan, H. Wilson)
Total fouls: Rochester 10, Clinton Prairie 13
Turnovers: Rochester 17, Clinton Prairie 14
Score by quarters
Rochester 10 11 7 8 – 36
Clinton Prairie 6 13 3 8 – 30
Comentários