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St. Marys' Reese Rable (14) is guarded by New Knoxville's Lela Gottschalk during Tuesday's non-conference girls basketball game at Grand Lake Health System Court. The Roughriders defeated the Rangers 55-35.
ST. MARYS - The shooting by both New Knoxville and St. Marys was at times as frigid as the outside, but the Roughrider defense brought some warmth to Grand Lake Health System Court on Tuesday night.
St. Marys jumped to an early big lead and came close to getting the running clock in the fourth quarter in the Roughriders' 55-35 win over the Rangers in non-league girls basketball action.
The win was big for the Roughriders (4-13), snapping a three-game losing streak after coming close in a two-point loss to Bryan on Saturday. The Rangers, who were missing Avery Albers due to surgery, drop their fourth straight to go to 3-14.
Both teams struggled with their shots early. It took three minutes before the first points were scored by the Riders' Lauren Jacobs via a 3-pointer. Two minutes later, Addi Albers scored the first Ranger points, but St. Marys looked off and running, leading 12-2 with under two minutes to play in the opening quarter. The Riders led 12-4 after one quarter.
The Roughriders stayed hot in the second quarter, only, slowing pushing the lead higher with solid shooting, with a lot of points coming off Ranger turnovers.
"(New Knoxville was) in that zone (defense) and we took a lot of outside shots," said St. Marys coach Scott Jordan. "We got some good bounces, but also hustled and earned those offensive rebounds, too. Shooting percentage probably wasn't great (36.8%). Shot selection wasn't bad."
While St. Marys was getting scoring from Sophia Menker (10 points in first half), Reese Rable (nine points) and Jacobs (five points), Addi Albers was the only regular scorer for the Rangers in the contest. Albers finished with 10 of the Rangers' 12 first-half points, the final three coming on a buzzer-beating trey from just inside half court to make the score 26-12 Riders at the half.
New Knoxville's Addi Albers goes up for a layup against St. Marys.
"Defensively, we got after it," said Jordan, whose squad forced New Knoxville into 20 turnovers. "We held Albers down for at least what her average is. We did a good job rebounding the ball (St. Marys had a 36-23 advantage on the boards). Very proud of us, defensively."
In the second half, St. Marys quickly pushed the lead margin past 20 points and were closing in on 30 points by the end of the quarter, then reaching it early in the fourth quarter. New Knoxville, however, never let the margin reach 35, which would have triggered the running clock, making a run at the end to get back to near 20 points.
St. Marys' Logan Henschen (11) is guarded by New Knoxville's Brynn Egbert during Tuesday's game.
Rable and Menker each finished with 15 points to lead St. Marys. Jacobs did not score in the second half to finish with her 10.
Albers led the Rangers with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 5-of-7 foul shooting. Paige Webb scored all eight of her points in the fourth quarter.
Both teams are back in league action on the road on Thursday. St. Marys travels to Van Wert for a Western Buckeye League match with the Cougars. New Knoxville goes to Darke County to face Versailles. The junior varsity game will be just two quarters.
