United stays undefeated in ITCL Tier One play

January 13, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By Lowell Spencer

Hanoverton

Behind a tenacious defensive effort, the United High girls basketball team soared to another convincing Inter Tri-County League Tier One victory Thursday night with a 47-28 victory.

“Being number one in the league, everyone is gunning for you,” said Eagles coach Sam Mathias, whose team improved to 10-3 and 7-0 in the league. “They are going to give you their best shot. Lisbon has been playing really well; they had a couple rough games, their last two, but everything else they have been playing well.

“So we knew it was going to be tough, but we set our goal, we wanted to protect the home court and go 7-0, undefeated the first half of the season.”

After a free throw by Lisbon to start the game, the Eagles went on an 8-0 run to grab the early momentum. The Devils did not score a field goal until just over three minutes remaining in the second period.

“We pride ourselves on that,” Mathias said. “We do a lot of hard work on our half-court defense. We know we [create] a lot of match-up problems with some of our taller girls with Sam [Spitler], Cassidy [Yoder], and Taylor [Smith] down low so it gives us an advantage down low on the block. And then we have a lot of quick guards in Emily [Zehentbauer], Preslee [Johnson], Devon [Ritchie], Tara [Gray], and Mackenzie [Gatchel]; they are all quick guards that can put pressure on the guards out front.”

Not only did those “taller” girls create matchup problems defensively, but they also led the team in scoring. Zehentbauer scored a team-best 13 points, while Smith and Gatchel chipped in 10 points apiece.

“At points we struggle offensively and tonight was just one of those nights,” Lisbon coach Jason Thompson said. “We’ve had three games now where we just can’t get anything going offensively. We just really struggled. United is known to pressure you and we just don’t handle that very well.”

United led as much as 20 points in the second period before Lisbon connected on a couple baskets before the half, cutting the Eagles’ advantage to 15 with a 28-13 halftime score. They would only be outscored 19-15 in the second half.

“Like I told the girls, I was proud that they didn’t stop,” Thompson said. “You know, it’s a real test of character at that point.

“They could have quit, but we didn’t.”