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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
WOLCOTT — Makenna Strycker scored 10 points, but the Pioneer girls basketball team lost to host Tri-County 62-18 in the season opener for both teams Saturday.
Mia McKaig hit a 3-pointer, and Avery Haselby and Kynzie Hathaway each had a bucket for Pioneer. Julia McGrew made a free throw.
Sara Zarse scored a game-high 27 for Tri-County, and Grace Luck had 11. Zarse and Luck made three 3-pointers a piece.
Tri-County made eight 3-pointers as compared to Pioneer’s two.
Tri-County also committed 10 turnovers as compared to Pioneer’s 24.
Pioneer went on an 8-0 run in the second quarter to cut a 22-point deficit down to 28-14, but Tri-County responded with a 21-0 run that bled into the final minute of the third quarter to make it 49-14. That triggered a running clock, per the IHSAA Mercy Rule.
“Our footwork and our passing need to obviously improve,” Pioneer coach David McWherter said in regard to the turnovers. “And then also, their ability to put pressure on us… they’re long, lanky and athletic, and that’s going to cause everybody trouble all year long who do not match up with that. We knew coming in that our ballhandling and our guard play is going to have to improve throughout the year, but if we continue to work on meeting the pass, our footwork and our passes, we’ll get better as the year goes on.”
Strycker, a Wittenberg University commit, scored Pioneer’s first bucket of the season off a steal with 6:35 left in the first quarter. She later hit two free throws with 3:25 left in the quarter.
But Tri-County then reeled off a 17-0 run. That included an air ball putback from Hannah Arvin, a steal and layup from Zarse, a finish from Alivia Pritts after a feed from Arvin on a fast break and 3-pointers from Zarse and Lyzzy Bahler.
Bahler hit two free throws, and Luck hit a 3 to start the second quarter to make it 26-4.
“We were anticipating a zone, so we kind of prepared for that and tried to get some open looks,” Tri-County coach Missi Tyler said of her team’s perimeter shooting.
Haselby broke the drought with a back door cut that led to an open mid-range banker.
Trailing 28-6, Kynzie Hathaway knocked down a 17-footer, and Strycker and McKaig hit 3s.
“Well, at that point, they kind of switched to a 2-3 zone, and that allowed for us to play to our strength a little bit of being able to get them scrambling defensively and get ourselves some good looks,” McWherter said. “You’ve got to admit Avery Haselby and Khloe Weaver came in and played a few good minutes there for us and helped give us a little bit of a spark. Obviously, Makenna, Mia and Kynzie, those girls give it their all and play really hard throughout, and we had good chemistry at that point in the game.”
At that point, Tri-County coach Missi Tyler switched from a zone defense to a man-to-man.
“We started out in the zone, and then… we didn’t like how they were exposing some weaknesses, and we weren’t adjusting despite talking about it at a timeout, so we went into a man-to-man, and I feel like that’s our best defense,” Tyler said. “We’re just not maybe in shape to play that the entire game, but we did go back and forth into that because that’s probably our best defense at this point.”
Haselby, Weaver, Michelle Harding, Rachel Harding and Brooklyn Dillman were among the Pioneer players making their varsity debuts.
Tri-County 62, Pioneer 18
PIONEER (18) (0-1)
Makenna Strycker 3 3-4 10, Mia McKaig 1 0-0 3, Julia McGrew 0 1-2 1, Kynzie Hathaway 1 0-0 2, Hannah Zeigler 0 0-0 0, Brooklyn Dillman 0 0-0 0, Avery Haselby 1 0-0 2, Khloe Weaver 0 0-0 0, Michelle Harding 0 0-0 0, Rachel Harding 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 6 4-6 18
TRI-COUNTY (62) (1-0)
Lyzzy Bahler 2 4-4 9, Sara Zarse 9 6-7 27, Grace Luck 4 0-0 11, Madysen Spencer 0 0-0 0, Hannah Arvin 2 3-4 7, Alivia Pritts 2 0-0 4, Grace Tyler 1 0-0 3, Madalynn Iseminger 0 1-2 1
TEAM: 20 14-17 62
Three-point field goals:
Pioneer 2 (Strycker, McKaig),
Tri-County 8 (Zarse 3, Luck 3, Bahler, Tyler)
Total fouls: Pioneer 10, Tri-County 6
Turnovers: Pioneer 24, Tri-County 10
Score by quarters
Pioneer 4 10 1 3 – 18
Tri-County21112010–62
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