|
|
Mississinawa Valley senior Mackenzie Dirmeyer connects for two of her
game high 25 points Thursday
as the Lady Hawks picked up their first
victory of the season. Mississinawa Valley dropped a 67-53 loss
on
Ansonia in Cross County Conference action. CNO Photos by Dylan Knoop
|
|
Mississinawa
Valley gets hard earned victory
Fourth quarter defense propels Lady Hawks
By George Starks
UNION CITY- It took a little bit of everything Thursday for
Mississinawa Valley to gain its first victory of the year.
It all came together in the final eight minutes.
Holding a slim 42-37 lead after three quarters of play, Mississinawa
Valley used a solid fourth quarter defense coupled with good rebounding
and timely offense to post a 67-53 CCC victory over Ansonia.
The Lady Hawks opened the final frame on a 6-0 run as senior Mackenzie
Dirmeyer had four of the six with junior Kelsie picking up the other
two as the Hawks built a 48-37 advantage.
Despite 25 from Dirmeyer and 10 rebounds, juniors Kelsie netted 16 and
Makayla Stump added 12 in support of Dirmeyer.
While the three combined for 54 of the 67 points, Coach Roger Collins
was quick to set it all straight.
“I had seven kids out there that really played well tonight. Heather
Dirkson, Haether Johns, Kylie Willis played well as did Lauren
Newbauer,” said Collins. ”It really didn’t matter who the scorers were
but once we settled down, were a good team. When we’re trying to run
and play someone else’s game, we’re lost.”
Lost is exactly what the Hawks were through the first three frames.
Mississinawa Valley trailed 10-6 after one but held leads of 23-17 at
the break and 42-37 after three.
During the second and third quarters, the Hawks seemingly lost their
way on the floor, losing leads to the Tigers before pulling it together.
“They got tired and that’s something we need to work on a little bit
more,” said Collins. “We can’t afford to play the other teams game.
We’ve played the two toughest teams we have on the schedule
(Tri-Village and Union Modoc). Tri-Village is very good and Union is
excellent. One of the best teams I’ve ever coached against. Ansonia has
a good team. We just tried to take two of their players out of the
game.”
Despite giving up 16 fourth quarter points, the Hawks defense created
much of the fourth quarter offense.
“We went man to man,” said Collins. “Then we switched to a zone then
back to the man defense and Ansonia didn’t adjust to that. We created
two or three turnovers and they would call time-out. Then we would
change our defense up on them.”
With Ansonia being a backyard rival to Missisinawa Valley, the win was
huge as it was the first one of the season for Collins and his kids.
“This is a huge win for us,” admitted the Hawks coach. “We needed to
get one to start and you can’t win your second one until you win the
first one. This win was a big stepping stone for us. When we started to
run our offense, we started to click and we have things we need to work
on but we finally got the first win of the season.”
With two of his starters on the bench, one with illness and the other
with injury, Ansonia coach Jim Bolin wasn’t totally discouraged.
“We had two of my starters out tonight and that hurt us,” said Bolin.
“We shot terrible from the line and we lost our composure several times
in the game. We had our chances but we just didn’t play well,
especially in the fourth quarter. We didn’t have patience and we
weren’t disciplined.”
Led by junior Brooke Neal’s 21 points, sophomore Lydia Sink netted 15
with 11 rebounds to lead the Tigers.
“Lydia’s a good athlete and she jumps well,” said Bolin. “Brooke
stepped up on offense and led the charge for us. We need to straighten
out a few things and get better as a team. We’re very young and still
looking for the leadership on the floor. We only have one senior on the
team (Gayla Crabtree) and she does not start. When you start three
sophomores, a junior and a freshman and tonight, we didn’t even have
that out there. We didn’t show much patience and maturity but you have
to give them (MV) credit. They played well and won the game. That’s
what it’s all about.”
With the win, MV (1-2) will host Riverside today at 1 pm while Ansonia
(2-2) will host Riverside today with the junior varsity starting at 3
pm. This will be a boys/girls double-header.
|
|
Ansonia sophomore Jailyn Twaits looks to score as MV senior Heather
Johns defends.
|
|
|
|
