43
United routs South Range
Beavery Township
Even though it was a makeup game, it didn’t lessen the intensity of Monday’s Inter-County League Tier One game between United and South Range.
“That was probably one of our best games, other than Ravenna, that we played all year,” coach Roger Zeigler said of a United Eagles team, that plowed through the Raiders, 61-38, at South Range’s new gym. “We executed our game plan and played outstanding, plus we kept the pressure up.”
United (10-3, 7-0) zipped out to a 39-18 halftime lead and finished by making 24-of-57 goals and 7-of-10 free throws.
After taking an early lead, South Range (11-2, 6-1) fell behind quickly and never got close as the Raiders’ field-goal deficiency was 13-of-48.
“We try to come after you, try to double and try to cover all areas and try to get to all the shooters and move when we see the ball in the air,” Zeigler said. “We were on them. I don’t think they got too many open shots. Plus, we were rebounding well, especially on the defensive boards.”
Turnovers also played a big role in the outcome as South Range committed 22 to United’s 8.
“They just executed everything very well: offensively, defensively — they were mixing it up on defense and getting deflections and they just took us out of our game,” said South Range coach Wayne Johnson.
Rachel Sell had 17 points, Crystal Richards 12 and Sierra Parks 11 for the winners, who will play South Range again in 10 days.
“Our outside shooting early got us into the game and got our girls relaxed as they gained confidence,” Zeigler said. “The important thing was not to come out and let them blitz us in the first two minutes. Those outside shots kept us in it.”
Parks had seven rebounds, while Carter Lange grabbed six of United’s 32 rebounds.
Lexi Naples, Emily Seman and Kenzie Pfeifer were Range’s top scorers with seven points each.
“We did what we wanted to do on defense, but they just executed and shot extremely well.” Johnson said.
When reviewing his team’s success, Zeigler pointed to three areas.
“We got some turnovers and capitalized on them; we had good outside shooting that fired up our girls and we were able to handle the ball all-around,” he said.
Zeigler added he didn’t want a letdown in the second half.
“Why play hard the first half and then not finish it? I told the girls that they are going to come after us harder to try to get back in the game. I thought it was important to at least play them even the third quarter,” he said.