After slow start, Loyal girls rise to defeat Spencer

By Valorie Brecht Despite taking a while to find their rhythm, the Loyal girls basketball team eventually settled in and earned a convincing victory against the Spencer Rockets at home last Thursday.

The game opened with Loyal’s Addysen Wolf hitting a corner three just 20 seconds into the game. A couple of minutes later, Spencer responded with a mid-range jumper from sophomore Autumn Davis, the Rockets’ go-to scorer that night.

Over the next minute or so, Loyal worked the ball around, not finding the net but getting plenty of open looks in the meantime.

“Active defense, active hands! Too many open shots. Get your hands up, defense!” Spencer coach Kyle Davis told his team from the sideline.

Not too long after that, one of those open looks turned into a score, as Loyal’s Autumn Zvolena got an offensive rebound she put back for 2 points, making it 5-2 Loyal. Spencer’s Claudia Krause answered with a jumper to bring it up to 5-4.

After that, Loyal had a poor pass that allowed Spencer to take the ball away. Davis capitalized on that by hitting a 3-pointer halfway between the top of the arc and corner at 13:41. She found her sweet spot, as less than a minute later she made a basket from that same spot. Just like that, the Rockets were ahead 10-5. Spencer also defended aggressively, with Ema Schultz knocking the ball away from Loyal. The Greyhounds were arguably just as aggressive though, even as they struggled to gain ground on offense.

Finally, at 11:06, Wolf was fouled upon and made both her free throws. Less than a minute later, Sheila Tellock hit a mid-range jumper for the Hounds and, just like that, the teams were tied at 10. After a couple minutes of nothing, Tellock made an inbound pass to Zvolena, which she promptly put up for a bucket. That was at the start of a 9-point run for Loyal to go up 19-10.

Loyal coach Mike Rueth explained why it took Loyal a while to gain points over the Rockets.

“It takes time for us to figure out who we’re going against offensively. And we worked on some stuff at practice this week to change things up, to put more ball spins involved in our zone offense and just get more movement, and I just thought that once the kids figured that out, they got into a little bit of a rhythm. And we did some things that we haven’t done all year against a zone (defense), which is good to see,” said Rueth.

“We were able to finally get some movement in our zone offense. We stood around a lot the last couple games and it was nice to finally get some player movement in our zone offense that was lacking in previous games,” he added.

That is not to say the Greyhounds totally shut the Rockets down, though. Spencer got a couple more baskets before the half was over, including a layup by Schultz and another Autumn Davis three. However, the Rockets also made a few more mistakes as the half wore on.

“Stay active!” Kyle Davis told his team with four minutes on the clock, even as the team became fatigued and lost some of the spring in their step.

Loyal scored 10 more points before the half was through, ending on a high note when Zvolena snatched away a loose ball and ran it down the court to score 2 just as the buzzer sounded. That made it 29-15 with Loyal ahead at the half.

The second half began the same way as the first, with Wolf hitting a three. Autumn Davis responded with a three of her own, her fourth of five 3-pointers that night, to make it 32-18. To their credit, despite trailing by 14, the Rockets didn’t throw in the towel and kept the gap between 14 and 16 points over the next nine minutes. In the latter half of the second half, though, Loyal started to pull away. It started with Wolf making two free throws and continued with baskets from Zvolena, Olivia Nikolai and Mallory Jakobi.

With around three minutes left, Loyal subbed in several of its bench players. Annika Schley had the last word when she made a free throw with 12 seconds left, and a layup at the last second to close out the game.

The Greyhounds defeated the Rockets 68-40. The Hounds scored 29 in the first half and 39 in the second. The Rockets also scored 10 more points in the second, going from 15 to 25, but it was not enough to overcome the lead Loyal had already established.

Zvolena led the Greyhounds in scoring, with 21 points, her most by far this season. Most of her points on the night (18) came from 2-point baskets. She also brought down six boards.

Rueth was happy to see Zvolena shine on the court. “She had a really good game tonight. You know, she comes in every morning early — 5 o’clock — and lifts and works on her game. So you’re always waiting for all that hard work to pay off, and I thought tonight was one of those nights. So I’m glad she was rewarded for her hard work.”

Loyal’s second-highest scorer was Wolf, who racked up 20 points, including three 3s. She also put in five of her six free throws.

“Addy’s been struggling with her shot, and tonight she shot the ball very, very well. So it was nice to see her kind of get back on track,” said Rueth. “She’s had a wrist injury, which kind of slowed her down a little bit, but I thought she looked really good offensively.

Tellock had the next highest point total with 8. She snagged five rebounds.

“Sheila Tellock right now is playing on one foot. She had a really bad sprain, and so she played a lot of minutes for us tonight… So her performance gutting it out and playing through that injury shows a lot of toughness on her part,” said Rueth.

In comparison to some of her other games this season, Nikolai had more of a supporting role, but she still scored 7 points and was her team’s leading rebounder, with eight. Other point scorers were Jakobi with 5, Summer Smith with 4 and Schley with 3.

Loyal stole the ball 14 times while Spencer did so twice. Autumn Davis scored the lion’s share of Spencer’s points, with 31 on the night. About half of those points (15) came from 3-pointers. Claudia Krause scored 4, Schultz and Carmen Krause had 2, and Theresa Knecht had 1.

Luepke leaps to score

Above, after powering his way to the basket, Carter Luepke sends the ball up to score 2 points for Spencer in last Friday’s home game versus Columbus Catholic. The Dons defeated the Rockets 70-26. Point totals for Spencer were: Sam Bezlyk 8, Mathers McHone 5, Luepke 4, Drake Johnson 3, Noah Anderson 3 and Breckin Miller 3.

VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTO

VALORIE BRECHT/STAFF PHOTOS