PLEASANT HILL – Mississinawa Valley girls basketball remains undefeated in the WOAC with a 57-34 win over Newton Saturday afternoon.
Newton is an exciting young team and has already pulled off a surprise in the early part of the 2025-26 season last Saturday with a 51-48 win over Arcanum.
It was the first of three straight games against some of the top teams in the league.
They played at Tri-Village Thursday night falling 47-22 and needed a win verses Mississinawa to stay in the WOAC race.
Mississinawa got off to a great start jumping out to an 8-0 lead on six points from Cora Hoggatt and two from Brooklynn Seubert.
The 3-2 zone defense employed by the Hawks stymied the Indians who began to try and work the ball into the middle to senior Rylee Hess and let her attack.
She got the Indians on the board drawing a foul at the rim making a free throw and followed with an-old fashion three-point play to draw the score 8-4 at 2:25.
Scoring the ball allowed Newton’s press go into action creating some turnovers and lay-ups for freshman guard Ani Cottrell and another from Hess tying the game at eight.
Moments later Cottrell hit a step back jumper in the lane giving the Indians a 10-8 lead, all in just a few minutes prompting Mississinawa to use a timeout.
Mississinawa responded with a fielder from freshman Cassidy Seubert … but Rylee Hess with 7 points in 1st quarter finished the scoring on a free throw giving Newton an 11-10 advantage.
The Hawks settled down in the 2nd quarter and turned it up a bit on defense which led to three steals by sophomore guard Tenlee Woodbury converting lay-ups for six points. Cora Hoggatt scored eight in the paint as Mississinawa looked to take advantage of their size.
Hess was the only player to score for Newton, she had five in the 2nd quarter, and they would trail 28-16 at the break.
Newton lacking size had to play to their strengths and in the 2nd half they pushed tempo and with that comes mistakes but at some point you have to live with them.
Newton scored 9 points in the 3rd quarter, Cottrell hit a triple and a fielder for five and the Hess sisters both had two each.
But they couldn’t slow down Mississinawa who increased their lead to 41-24 heading into the final frame.
Brooklynn Seubert who ran into foul trouble much of the game scored eight points and the Hawks had 16 in the fourth quarter, while Newton added another nine, falling 57-34 in league play.
After the game Mississinawa coach Kirk Comer shared his disappointment for not handling Newton’s pressure well … but also gave credit to the Indians as well.
“I didn’t think we handled the pressure very well. We got to get a lot better. It hurts not having Paige Emrick (out with injury) … but it’s next man up,” Comer explained.
“We prepared for their pressure, but obviously we weren’t prepared enough. We tried to do things we didn’t practice and therefore had several turnovers. Hopefully we’ve learned from that,” coach Comer stated.
“They (Newton) play hard, and I think they’re well coached and we thought coming in here it was going to be a battle … and it was a battle, but for to us reach our goals, we’ve got to be better at taking care of the basketball,” Comer said.
“We still were able to compensate for those turnovers and get the win,” Comer concluded.
Newton’s Rylee Hess shouldered much of the load on offense with 18 points and Ani Cottrell added 12 for the Indians. They fell to 2-3 overall and 2-2 in the WOAC and will be back in action on Tuesday playing at Dixie.
Cora Hoggatt led all scorers with a solid 22 and Brooklynn Seubert had 12 to lead Mississinawa. They improve to 7-1 overall and 5-0 in the WOAC and will host Northeastern on Monday.
Box Scores:
Score by Quarters
MV …… 10… 18 … 13 … 16 – 57
NEW … 11 … 05 … 09 … 09 – 34
Team Scoring:
MV: T. Woodbury 0-3-0/2 – 6, M. Hoggatt 0-2-3/6 – 7, T. Reichard 0-1-0/0 – 2, C. Seubert 1-2-1/3 – 8, C. Hoggatt 0-11-0/1 – 22, B. Seubert 0-2-0/0 12 – Totals 1-25-4/12 – 57
NEW: B. Hines 0-1-0/0 – 2, B. Hess 0-1-0/0 – 2, R. Hess 0-6-6/9 – 18, P. Holbrook – 0-0-0/2 – 0, A. Cottrell 2-3-0/0 – 12, Totals 2-11-6/11 – 34
