The Grandview girls basketball team ended 14 years of futility against St. Pius X with a 43-21 win over the host Lancers Monday night.
The Eagles, who improved to 10-1, hadn’t beaten the Lancers (6-7) since Feb. 3, 2003, losing the last 26 meetings against their JCAA rivals.
“This is just a start,” said Grandview junior Macy Ketcherside, who scored 14 points. “We’re getting better every day.”
The Eagles led by only one point, 19-18, at halftime. But they put the St. Pius offense in the deep freeze the rest of the way, blanking the Lancers in the third quarter and holding them to three free throws in the fourth.
“We had a specific game plan we wanted to execute and we didn’t do that at all in the first half,” Grandview head coach Ronda Hubbard said. “I revisited that at halftime. We buckled down and we’re super coachable and we came out with a different energy level in the second half.”
The Lancers never took a shot from inside the paint. Hubbard said that was due primarily to strong defensive play from Eagle guards Kirstin Sparks, Karleigh Faust, Katelyn McGlaughlin and Melina Eaker, plus Ketcherside’s inside presence.
“Our style of pressure-oriented defense and closing seams on drives – we put both of those things together in the second half,” Hubbard said.
Sparks basically threw a blanket over St. Pius forward Machela Cook, who finished with one point, 15 less than her season average.
“And (Sparks) is four inches smaller,” St. Pius head coach Aaron Portell lamented. “They played harder than us today.”
The Lancers run a ball-screen offense and didn’t get one ball reversal.
“We like to attack the basket, but we played so timid,” Portell said.
St. Pius senior Sammy Linderer made two 3-point baskets in the first quarter, but Grandview junior Meaghan Faust made two buckets and sophomore Kaylyn Sparks made another as the Eagles scored the last six points of the opening period.
Linderer started the second with a trey and Lancers freshman Molly Bange hit a field goal as the Lancers trimmed the deficit to 13-11. The two teams traded baskets and St. Pius junior Stephanie Reyes tied the game 15-15 with a basket with 3:51 left in the half.
Junior Jordanne Mickley gave the Lancers their only lead of the night with 2:02 left in the half on a 3-pointer, but Ketcherside scored with 1:45 remaining to push the Eagles back on top. She was fouled on the play but missed the free throw and went 0-5 from the line to close out the first half.
Ketcherside snapped out of the funk, however, by making her two free throws in the second half.
“I have to tell myself, ‘You’ve got this, you’ve done it before,’ and just make them,” she said.
Grandview went on an 18-0 run in the second half before Cook made a free throw with 3:22 left in the game.
The Eagles feed off of Hubbard’s intensity on the sidelines. But the coach said they have to be more self-motivated.
“In order for us to move from a good team to a great team, we have to have leadership from the players,” Hubbard said. “All great teams have that.”
Young Lancers are struggling
The St. Pius boys team had a record of 1-9 going into its home game against Saxony Lutheran (10-1) on Wednesday after the Leader deadline.
St. Pius head coach Eric Lawrence said despite his team’s record, they’ve been competitive in all but two games.
“We’re a very young team,” said Lawrence, who has seven underclassmen on his 13-man roster. “We’ve been in every game except against Chaminade and Lutheran South. Our biggest problem has been, when we’re ahead everything’s going good, and when we’re down we kind of give up at times. I stress (to) keep working hard no matter what the scoreboard says.”
Case in point was the Lancers’ last game before the New Year, against Francis Howell North. After a sluggish first quarter, with the Knights on top 14-3, the Lancers had a scoring edge of 15-10 in the second quarter. But they couldn’t sustain that momentum and were outscored 17-5 in the third quarter. The Knights won 59-38.
“We got flustered and made mental mistakes and the game got away from us,” Lawrence said.
Sophomore guard Jalen Thornton leads St. Pius with an average of 7.6 points per game while Zach Morlock is the top rebounder at just under six per contest.