HOWARD — The East Knox girl’s basketball team fought hard during the first half of Tuesday night’s game against Highland, but the game was dominated by the Fighting Scot girls who won, 53-33.
“This feels good,” said Highland Coach Whitney Levering-Smith. “We knew that East Knox last year and this year were going to be good. We wanted to make sure that we came out strong and aggressive and that we didn’t let up all four quarters. We stuck with our game plan and our girls did a good job of executing.”
The second and third quarters were where the Highland girls really flexed their muscles. They outscored their opponent significantly (17-4 in the second quarter and 16-6 in the third quarter) and made the victory look like an easy one.
“We only scored four points in the second quarter,” said EK Coach Chip Pozderac. “They blew us out 17 to 4. We didn’t set our feet offensively.”
The Scots used a strong trapping defense to keep East Knox from getting into any flow offensively. Levering-Smith was happy with the way her team took it to the Bulldogs, holding them to just 10 points in the second and third quarters.
“Defense is what led our game tonight. That was our whole entire game plan. We wanted to come out and be aggressive and make them flustered and it looked like that made a difference,” Levering-Smith said. “Hopefully we can continue to keep this energy up.”
Pozderac hopes the East Knox girls can take this game as a learning experience.
“Our shots were good selection, but we weren’t setting our feet and getting ready for it. Rebounding was nonexistent. We’re not very strong. They took it at us,” she said. “We scouted them and their trapping defense killed us. I’ve got great ball handlers, but they get caught in there (the trapping defense) and they are young and they are trying to throw the ball over their heads. That’s not a good thing. The bottom sort of fell out of the game and we sort of dug a hole.
The top scorer for East Knox was Meggan Bartok with 11 points. Alexandria Magers added seven points.
