Not a beauty of a game, but WH girls play like beasts in 24-point win
By Bill Houston
January 9, 2011
358
After watching Paige Asches record-tying night from behind the three-point arc (7-of-8 attempts); seeing freshman phenom Laina Snyder drop in a career-high 23 points on 82-percent shooting; taking it all in as Snyder completed the double-double with 11 rebounds, to go along with the double-double from her older sister and senior post player Lindsy Snyder (13 points, 11 rebounds); and marveling as the entire West Holmes team simply shot the lights out (68-percent in the first-half, 61-percent for the game) in a 49-point win at Mansfield Madison, Thursday Jan. 6, the Lady Knights 50-26 win over the Lady Minutemen Saturday afternoon, Jan. 8, in Lexington seemed ho-hum in comparison as head coach Lisa Pattersons girls simply went out and took care of business.
The younger Snyder sister struggled to find her shooting touch for most of the first-half against Lady Lex, so she did what any little sister would do and looked to her older sibling for help, dumping the ball into the low post where Lindsy Snyder was able to muscle in the games first six points off of layups inside the paint.
We went inside early with Lindsy and they didnt have an answer right away, explained Patterson after watching her team jump out to a 10-0 lead before Lexington could put anything on the board.
The answer Lexington (6-3) (3-3) head coach Daryl Uhde thought he had going in was to play man-to-man defense against the significantly bigger team from West Holmes (9-0) (7-0) at the outset, but that man-to-man match up in the middle turned out to be man against monster, forcing Uhde to switch to a zone.
Lindsy was just a beast in the paint this afternoon, she really was, said Patterson about her senior post, who would finish the game with her sixth double-double of the season – pouring in 13 points and adding a game-high 14 rebounds – keying the Lady Knights defense and helping West Holmes lay in 10 of their points on second-chance opportunities.
At the beginning of the game they matched up man, so I used my body, sealed off well and got some rebounds and put backs, explained the elder Snyder sister. A few girls gave me some really nice passes too, Paige [Asche] (2 assists), Laina [Snyder] (3), and Rachelle [Morrison] (game-high 4).
I dont care about getting the credit for scoring. Scoring is not always going to happen for me, but Im always going to come to rebound. Thats something they count on me to do.
Yesterday [coach Patterson] asked me for one thing I wanted to improve on and I told her, rebounding, continued Snyder. I told her I wanted to have 15 [against Lexington].
And while finishing with 14 instead of 15 may drive the Lady Knights senior a little crazy, that number helped pace West Holmes to a 45-28 rebounding advantage, which turned out to be the biggest factor in shutting down the Lady Lex offense that could only muster five points in the opening period and six in quarter number two.
That sent both teams into the break with West Holmes up 24-11 after Pattersons troops capped off their first-half scoring with the offensive highlight of the afternoon, when freshman guard Paiten Strother hit Laina Snyder with a pretty alley-oop pass as the freshman forward was flying toward the basket.
Thats a special play, said Laina Snyder. She passes it and I try to shoot it without coming back down. Its a fun play we run in practice and it worked today.
Added Patterson, With Lainas athleticism its kind of fun to run that play. You draw it up and run it in practice, and its fun to see it work in a game situation.
With the beauty of that play in the books, Patterson looked to her team to continue to be beasts on the boards in the second-half as Lexingtons quickness allowed them to beat West Holmes pressure defense better than any other opponent early this season, forcing the Lady Knights to shut down the Lady Minutemen in the half-court.
The Lady Knights responded, holding Lady Lex to just five points again in the third quarter as West Holmes work on the glass forced Lexington to go one-and-done on the offensive end most of the afternoon.
I just think we out-hustled the other team, said freshman guard Paiten Strother after crashing the boards for four rebounds, to go along with four from freshman point guard Emily Molnar, six from sophomore post-player Mallori Vess, eight from Laina Snyder and the 14 from Lindsy Snyder. Most of their shots were short and came right back at us. They had a couple of girls, [Taylor Whitaker and Alissa Munro] who could shoot threes and we didnt want them to get their own rebounds. And [Munro] in the paint, we wanted to make sure she didnt get rebounds.
Mission accomplished, as Whitaker and Munro combined for only four boards, while Lexingtons leading rebounders – senior forward Ashley Stevens and junior guard Jaclyn Rourke – were held to just seven and six rebounds, respectively.
But even away from the glass, Pattersons defenders continued to shine in the half-court.
Coming into the game averaging just under 15 points per game, Munro would be held to just two points through three quarters by the sparkling defense of Pattersons backcourt, as West Holmes built their lead to 37-16 by the end of quarter number three.
She got some open looks, said Laina Snyder afterward. I guarded against the drive more than the outside shots. She took two threes but missed them both, so I guess I got lucky.
Munro would finish the game with only eight points after draining two triple-tries during garbage time in the final period – the Lady Minutemen were paced by 10 points from Whitaker – but Laina Snyder would bounce back from her first-half struggles to almost equal her season average for the Lady Knights, leading all scorers with 16 points by the end of the game, thanks to a little talk she had at halftime... with herself.
In [pre-game] warm-ups I didnt make anything so it was kind of in my head and I didnt shoot very well. At half I changed my mind and told myself Im not going to miss every time and I started making more in the second-half.
If it were only that easy for the rest of us.
And if only it were so easy to just take care of business every single night, putting together 24-point wins, while playing ho-hum Saturday afternoon basketball.
One fan in attendance turned to the person she was sitting next to at the end of the game and asked facetiously, Did that just happen? Just like that?
Another die-hard, when asked to recount the game later in the evening said, We won by like 20, I think.
Boasting a 9-0 record near the midway point of their schedule and having beaten every team from the Ohio Cardinal Conference at least once, the Lady Knights have proven each outing may not always be a memorable thing of beauty, but they will always play like beasts in order to prevail.
West Holmes plays its third road game in five nights, Monday, Jan. 10, when the Lady Knights travel to Warsaw to take on the Lady Black Bears of River View, with tipoff set for 7:30 p.m.
