Lady Hawks play hard, have fun, get win over Saints
But with the echoes of a 73-16 victory still in the back of their minds, the Lady Hawks did not take a day off on this Saturday, and went to work playing hard for 32 minutes. A large early lead grew by leaps and bounds, as Hiland continued to knock down three-pointers and play ferocious defense, which led to an eventual 83-19 win in which Hiland came within one triple of tying the school mark for three-pointers.
But in this blowout, it wasn’t necessarily the barrage of threes that elated Hiland coach Dave Schlabach — although watching Meagan Hall drain seven treys and McKenzie Miller throw down four more wasn’t a bad elixir for a team struggling on the offensive end — but it was rather the way his team approached the game, a game in which they knew they would win before they ever took the floor, and the fact that they finally saw some fruits of their labor on the offensive side of the ball.
“We’ve had a lot of games just like this, and you don’t shoot the ball well, you turn the ball over; I thought we really took good care of the basketball and played really, really hard,” said Schlabach. “We didn’t allow the game to get sloppy.”
The head coach said that his players have worked very hard but before today, had not experienced a lot of good fortune in shooting the ball. He said that is what made this particular effort so satisfying, along with his team’s hustling approach the entire 32 minutes.
He hopes that a little success will go a long way in creating a more positive, confident team on offense.
“We have kids that have worked really hard, they just have not enjoyed the successes that I think they are capable of,” said Schlabach. “Hopefully now we can relax going into next week and play.”
Next week consists of a game against 10-1 Strasburg, followed by two Classic in the Country contests against two foes who are capable of dominating on a bad day in the gym. Then it is off to play at rival Garaway a week later, so the following 10 days are incredibly important to the Lady Hawks in terms of creating an identity.
“These games coming up are tough ones, and all of a sudden our kids have a little different feel out there,” said Schlabach.
Schlabach was thrilled to see Hall go off in the game, scoring 21 points on the seven three-pointers to complement Miller’s game-high 30. Schlabach said that if he can get that kind of consistent play out of his senior guard/forward, it completely changes the way Hiland can approach a game.
“Meagan) should feel really good about how she played,” said Schlabach of Hall. “If she can start to play on a consistent level for us we become a completely different team.”
Schlabach said that the biggest drive to play hard right now is the battle for playing time, with no less than 13 kids vying to gain quality, meaningful minutes on the floor.
Which is why in the fourth quarter of a blowout game, Rachel Horn was banging hard to secure one of her game-high seven rebounds. It’s why Sasha Goings was working hard to knock down her career-high seven points. It’s why Emily Yoder was playing defense at the top of the key with great intensity, pilfering five steals to go with her six points.
While Miller scored nine of her points and Hall added six in Hiland’s 20-6 first quarter, the true tell of the game was the second quarter, when the Lady Hawks put together perhaps their best quarter of the year.
In that fateful second, Hiland produced 27 points, featuring five three-pointers, including a pair from both Miller and Hall, and another from Kendra Schlabach.
But for as impressive as the offensive outburst was — and it was incredibly impressive — the defensive prowess with which the Lady Hawks played was merely impeccable.
In the quarter, TCC turned the ball over 10 times, and managed just two shots. The Saints had eight turnovers before even attempting a shot, and the zero for the eight minute period was the third in the last six quarters put together by Hiland’s defense.
The other bright spot for the Hawks was the continued excellence of Miller, a second team All-Ohioan who has come out of her early slump to put up some huge numbers since Schlabach benched her four games ago. Since that benching, Miller has put up 19 against Wooster, scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the win over Sandy Valley and then added the 30 point effort in this one.
“We really challenged her over Christmas break,” said Schlabach of Miller. “We didn’t feel she was anywhere near playing to her potential at all. She is too good of a player to just fade into the woodwork for a couple of weeks, and that is what she did. She is now definitely back to playing at a high level, and that is what we are used to. She is feeling that swagger again.”
Published: January 7, 2012
