by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
A big first quarter was just what Teays Valley needed to grab a 56-32 win at Logan Elm Tuesday night.
The Vikings scored the first eight points of the game and were up 18-2 by the end of the first quarter.
“Their guard play is very good. I know they’re still young but their guard action, their ball screen action is phenomenal – probably one of the best in the league. I think our experience helped us understand that,” TV coach Trevor Younkin said. “They’re going to be a good team and they’ve got a lot of good weapons. We were able to handle that.
“We had a really, really good first quarter. Holding them to only two points was a feather in our hat.”
“We have a lot of kids on our team that have that scorer’s mentality, but sometimes in life you have to run an offense so we’re able to see the defense – how are they going to defend what we are trying to do,” LE coach Mike Schultz said. “Make or miss, on those early shots in the possession we’re not able to gain that knowledge.
“They came out and played with a lot of fervor early and we weren’t able to match that. The girls played with a lot of effort but it’s always a bad matchup when you have a team like Teays Valley who is playing really good ball right now.”
The Vikings had a 37-16 lead by halftime.
The Braves had a good start to the second half as they scored the first six points and had a 14-10 edge in the quarter, leaving the score 47-30 in favor of the Vikings.
The Vikings struggled a bit finishing around the basket in the third.
“We’ve got some girls who are trying so hard. We want to be up at the top of the league and we’re putting a little pressure on ourselves,” Younkin said. “We’ve just got to relax and play and fight through things. We’ve got to let stuff go and stop thinking about it. That’s one of the things I love about basketball, if you think too hard, you’re going to mess up.
“We missed a lot of bunnies. But they didn’t hang their heads or have any bad body language. They kept battling and that’s important to us.”
Kennedy Younkin led the Vikings with 17 points and 13 rebounds while Tessa Horsley had 10 points, Alyssa Horsley had nine and Addie Helwagen had eight.
Seeing a number of players having good nights is something coach Younkin wants to see.
“I want it spread around. We’ve got to be so balanced to be where we want to be,” he said. “We want to get a chance for the title in the Mid-State League, but we also want to go in the Central District and do well, too. We’ve got to be able to fire on all ends. It can’t just be inside play, it’s got to be outside play, too.”
Kimmy Petty led LE with 10 points while Kiannah Ingram had six and Cadence Haupt had five.
“We’re not there yet. They have such tremendous senior leadership. They have some girls on their team that are just really, really good girls,” Schultz said. “We knew going in that they were going to be able to shoot, that Kennedy was going to be that dominant post that we are going to have to battle and learn how to battle and defend that properly.”
These are the games that Schultz said are important to the development of the program.
“One of the things we talked about before game was that these are opportunities. When you get to play against the top-tier teams, our job isn’t necessarily to always beat those top-tier teams, but to compete,” he said. “We’re still trying to build a culture, trying to build a program so we can emulate what some of those top-tier teams are able to do.”
The Vikings (8-4, 5-2) are back in action Thursday hosting Liberty Union and then travel to the Classic In the Country Saturday at Berlin Hiland High School to take on Archbishop Hoban at 3 p.m.
The Braves (6-6, 2-5) are back at it Saturday at Hamilton Township.
Teays Valley 56, Logan Elm 32
Teays Valley— Addie Helwagen 3-0-8, Gabrielle Watkins 2-0-5, Abby Tier 1-0-2, Cooper McManaway 0-2-2, Cami Robins 1-0-2, Kennedy Younkin 8-1-17, Alyssa Horsley 4-1-9, Avery Mann 0-1-1, Tessa Horsley 3-4-10. Three-point goals — Helwagen (2), Watkins. Total — 22-9-56.
Logan Elm — Kimmy Petty 4-1-10, Hannah Rhoads 1-0-3, Enaja Fischer 1-0-2, Kiannah Ingram 2-2-6, Kennedy Groff 2-0-4, Gillian Savage 1-0-2, Cadence Haupt 2-0-5. Three-point goals — Petty, Rhoads, Haupt. Total — 13-3-32.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Teays Valley 18 19 10 9 56
Logan Elm 2 14 14 2 32
