(December 5th, 2014) – WEST UNITY: Another day, another Lady Cadet establishes herself as a top shelf scorer.
This time it was Allie Schmitt who came up big for the Hilltop girls. Propelled by 2 successful three-point attempts, the Cadet junior scored 19 points in her team’s 50-39 home win against the neighboring Panthers of Stryker. Schmitt also had 3 steals in the game, and made 7 of her 8 free throw attempts.
And she wasn’t the only one to shoot well from the charity stripe, either. For the second game in a row, the Hilltop girls performed exceedingly well from the free throw line. As a team, the Lady Cadets shot carried a 72% success rate from the line. While not an eye-popping percentage, it becomes a bit more impressive when one takes into consideration that they earned 29 free throw attempts, which puts them at 21 makes. Stryker attempted just 24 shots from the line, making 11 of them.
Taylor Haines earned a third of those attempts for the Lady Panthers, an amazing feat for the 5’2” guard. The sophomore only connected on 3 of 8 attempts, however. She did knock down both of Stryker’s three-pointers on her way her way to 11 points, though.
The free throw line was much kinder to crafty Hilltop senior Destiny Denton. In fact, all 8 of her points came from the line, as the guard worked the Stryker defense to earn 10 trips to the charity stripe. She also looked to get her teammates involved in the offense, handing out 6 assists in the game. On the other end of the floor, Denton stole the ball 3 times as well.
Turnovers were a problem for Stryker. They committed 23 of them against a strong Cadet defense. Early in the game, the Lady Panthers were forcing their fair share of turnovers on the Hilltop girls, but the Lady Cadets cleaned up their game as the contest wore on. Hilltop only turned the ball over 14 times throughout the game.
Stryker Freshman Haley Doehrmann had a solid outing against the Lady Cadets. The 5’10” post player managed 8 points, all of which came from within the paint. She didn’t earn a single trip to the free throw line, however. As she matures as a player, Doehrmann will likely learn how to force opposing defenders to foul her, which will make her even more valuable to the Lady Panthers.
One thing the Hilltop post players did well was rebound. Karissa Crisenbery pulled down 9 boards to go along with her 4 points. Cierra Grant, who had a huge scoring game against Liberty Center in the previous week, brought in 6 rebounds while putting up 9 points. Sophomore Ariana Brown also had 6 rebounds in the game, scoring 4 points as well. In the contest, the Cadets outrebounded Stryker 34-22.
A young Hilltop team controlled the game against a younger Stryker squad. They were able to do this by taking care of the basketball, making their free throws, and getting rebounds. Mix in the fact that now two players have shown the potential to be major scorers, and it’s hard to imagine the Lady Cadets not having a lot of success this season.
Stryker, on the other hand, is having a rough year so far. Their youth is making things difficult for them thus far, but the potential is clearly there. As the season progresses, this team will mature and begin to see some success of its own.