PITSBURG – The Mississinawa Valley Lady Blackhawks traveled to Franklin Monroe for a Thursday night WOAC ladies basketball game and came away with a 61-21 win over the Lady Jets.
The Lady Hawks used a smothering full-court press to bolt out to a 26-2 lead after one quarter of play led by eight MacKenzea Townsend points and Syenna Purdin’s seven points.
“We came out, we pressed and we did what we wanted to do,” said MV coach, Michael Paige. “Once we got a big lead we knew that it was a struggle for them so we backed off a little bit but we still wanted to run our half-court stuff and stay consistent with that.”
“I think they have a state team, I don’t think there is any doubt about it, they are that good,” said Franklin Monroe coach, Tim Barga said of the Lady Hawks. “They have an excellent team, they have shooters, they have the inside game, the outside game, they can press, they got it all.”
Once Mississinawa backed down its full-court press in period No. 2 the Lady Hawks took the quarter by a 14-11 score sending the teams to the break with MV holding a solid 40- 13 advantage.
“The way we play, we like to press and we like to play fast but at the same time we know can’t do that to everybody so we still have to work on our half-court things,” Paige noted. “We still have to work on our three-quarter court things so what we did, we got out of the pressure of full court and went three quarter. We worked on some of our half-court defense that we have been working on.”
Eva Shellabarger paced the Lady Jets with seven points including two 3-pointers and Taylee Woodbury buried two Lady Hawks’ triples good for six points in the second.
Mississinawa Valley tallied 10 third-quarter points while holding the Lady Jets to four points to lead 50-17 win one period to play.
Brenna Price led the Lady Hawks with six fourth-quarter points with the visitors taking the final period by an 11-4 count with a running clock in play to earn the conference win.
Long-time veteran high school coach, Tim Barga takes over a team that will require some rebuilding, a program that does not list any eighth graders or freshmen on the rosters.
“We had a couple of girls that didn’t hustle the way I thought they would,” Coach Barga said following the game. Olivia Sease and Lillie Shellabarger, our seniors are the leaders of this team. “They work hard. Little Shellabarger (sophomore Eva) dives after this and that, she does everything she can do to win a ballgame, mostly on the defensive end but she works hard.”
The Lady Hawks were an uncharacteristic 0-7 at the free-throw line while canning seven 3-pointers on the night. Franklin Monroe shot 3-8 at the charity stripe and hit two triples.
“I’m ok with where we are at – we still have to get better, we have a lot of improving to do,” Coach Paige said. “I know this game we won by a lot but we still have a lot of tough games coming up. We have Northmont on Monday so we have to continue to get better every day.”
BOXSCORE:
MISSISSINAWA VALLEY 61, FRANKLIN MONROE 21
MISSISSINAWA VALLEY – K. Townsend 14, S. Purdin 13, B. Price 12, T. Woodbury 9, I. Ojeda 7, B. Seubert 4, M. Hoggatt 2 – TOTALS 20 0-7 7 61
FRANKLIN MONROE – E. Shellabarger 7, O. Sease 6, P. Cox 4, L. Shellabarger 23 4 – TOTALS 6 3-8 2 21
3-POINTERS
Mississinawa Valley 7 (T. Woodbury 3, S. Purdin 3, I. Ojeda 1)
Franklin Monroe 2 (E. Shellabarger 2)
SCORE by QUARTERS
26-14-10-11 61 Mississinawa Valley
02-11-04-04 21 Franklin Monroe
