Kayli Morris led the team with seven points against Southwestern.
Despite the unbearable temperatures and the ice storm that cancelled Friday nights play at the county tournament in Mt. Olive, the Lady Miners were still able to play Saturday afternoon against Southwestern. Before facing off against the 9-12 Piasa Birds for third place, the ladies had to beat the Mt. Olive Wildcats on their court. The Wildcats stood at 0-17 on the season and 0-2 in the tournament Thursday evening as the Lady Miners were 9-13 on the season and 1-1 in the tournament. Being ranked in the sixth position out of seven teams in the tournament, the ladies were vying for a better finish than many other coaches and spectators were expecting.
Before reaching the 3:00 game in the afternoon on Saturday, the ladies had to overtake the Wildcats on their home court. The game looked as if it was going to be a tight one after one quarter of play, but the Miners stepped it up in the second quarter and gained a considerable lead by halftime to carry them through the second half. Alexis Burns, Loni Nicole Manalia, and Shelby Jarman took care of the scoring for the first quarter for the Miners as the trio scored four points, four points, and six points respectively to tally 14 points in the first eight minutes. Carried by Chelsea Gill and Ellen Gray on the defensive end, the five were able to hold Mt. Olive to just 10 points as Eickmeyer scored 70% of their points.
With just a four point lead, the ladies built it up in the second half as the full court press factored five turnovers for the Wildcats and three easy lay-ups for the Miners. Haylie Kirkwood found her groove inside the paint and led the Miners with four points in the second quarter of play. Molly Gray chipped in with her big three pointer and the other seven points came from Ellen Gray, Manalia, and Morris who each had a field goal while Shelby Jarman had one made free throw. The six players contributed a team effort style of play as they still were able to gather 4 assists in the quarter and hold the Wildcats to just eight points to gain a ten point edge by halftime: 28-18.
In the drivers seat with 16 minutes left until the end of the game, the game plan was to continue to force the Wildcats to turnover the ball and make them pay on the offensive end. The plan was successful and the Miners walked away with the victory, but not before they were able to score 26 more points. Shelby Jarman led the team in the third quarter as she tallied six points and one steal while Chelsea Gill nailed a three pointer and Alexis Burns had a field goal and two free throws next to her name. Ellen Gray took pride in her defense as she stole the ball 4 times in the third quarter and 10 times throughout the game.
Holding the Wildcats to just a single digit nine points in the third quarter made way for a 16 point lead entering the fourth quarter, 43-27. With plenty of points to spare, the Miner bench was rotated throughout the final eight minutes of the game. Becca Ely led the team with four points in the quarter while Tyler Ross, Ellen Gray, and Shelby Jarman put forth an additional two points each. Scoring eleven points on the offensive end, the Miners were able to hold the Wildcats to just two field goals in the last quarter to get the 54-31 victory and the chance to vie for third place in the county tournament.
Scoring leaders for the Mt. Olive game were: Shelby Jarman (16), Alexis Burns (8), Loni Manalia (6), Ellen Gray (6), Haylie Kirkwood (4), Becca Ely (4), Molly Gray (3), Chelsea Gill (3), Tyler Ross (2), and Kayli Morris (2).
After defeating Mt. Olive by 23 points, the ladies faced off against Southwestern at three o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. Before entering Saturday’s match-up, Southwestern was 1-1 in the 94th annual county tournament after they were defeated 45-27 by North Mac and after they beat Staunton by just a three pointer, 47-44. With both teams being 1-1 in the tournament, third place was just beyond each teams’ finger tips.
The Miners got off to a slow start in the first quarter as the team could only combine for just five points. Alexis Burns and Kayli Morris knocked down a field goal while Ellen Gray swished a free throw to total the five points while Southwestern, on the other end, scored 13 points with eight of them coming from Wild. Trailing by eight points after the first quarter, more players got involved on the offensive end in the second quarter and they nearly tripled their points from the first quarter. The ladies knew they had to step it up if they were going to be a contender for the third place title.
Loni Manalia was a contributing factor in the big win over Mt. Olive as she totaled 4 steals.
Down just eight, Alexis Burns led the team in the second quarter with four points while four other players contributed one field goal to total 12 points. Now with the guest side of scoreboard reading 17, the Piasa Birds still had the lead by halftime after they outscored the Miners in the second quarter by just a single point. The Miners realized Wild was doing majority of the scoring and were able to shut her down, but another girl sprouted up and carried the team in the second quarter as their efforts contributed 13 points so they could still maintain the nine point lead at halftime, 17-26.
The nine point deficit turned into 14 point deficit by the end of the third quarter as the ladies were outscored by another five points. The team could only manage to find the bottom of the net for just seven points as Shelby Jarman led the crew with four points. The defense got sloppy and again, for the third straight quarter, the ladies were outscored. This time by only five points as the scoring lied in the hands of just three Piasa players. Nearing the end of the third quarter, both teams were in the bonus from all the fouls called which lighted the way for the long fourth quarter.
Trailing 38-24, the Miners started their comeback. The defense stepped it up and the ladies were back to stealing the ball on a regular pace as Jarman, Kayli Morris, and Ellen Gray led the team in steals with four, four, and three respectively. As the team totaled 15 steals in the game, most of them came in the fourth quarter as the Birds struggled to put the ball in the basket. The Birds scored just six points in the entire quarter while the Miners teamed up to outscore them by double digits and score 16 points. The girls were able to shoot seven free throws in the forth quarter to try and close the narrow gap, but only capitalized on two of them to contribute to the 40% free throw percentage over the length of the game. Just four points short of taking the game, the Miners took fourth place in the tournament: 44-40.
Leading scorers for the Southwestern game were: Shelby Jarman (11), Ellen Gray (7), Alexis Burns (7), Kayli Morris (7), Loni Manalia (2), Chelsea Gill (2), Tyler Ross (2), and Molly Gray (2).
After defeating the undefeated Nokomis Redskins Monday night, the Miners next game match-up will be at home against Greenville this evening, January 25th.
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