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Williams scores 11, McCune adds 10 for Lady Cavs
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Brailyn Hunter hit six 3-pointers and scored a game-high 18 points, and Rylee Clevenger knocked three 3s and added 10 to lead the Rochester girls basketball team to a 45-27 win over visiting Culver at the RHS gym Wednesday.
Culver cut what had been an eight-point deficit down to 21-18 on Ava McCune’s weakside cut to the basket and layin off an Amiyah Williams assist on the first possession of the third quarter, but they went over eight minutes before their next field goal as Rochester closed the quarter on a 15-1 run.
Williams, Culver’s senior post, scored a team-high 11 points, and McCune, a freshman point guard, added 10.
Rochester made 10 3-pointers while Culver made just one.
Rochester beat Culver for the 13th consecutive time and improved to 7-2. Culver fell to 2-4.
“To hold them to 27 after they had 16 at halftime … I wasn’t a very happy camper at halftime tonight,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “We started to get our trap out here stretched out in between the circles. We started to get that trap, and they were throwing it to the weak side of the floor, and we got that initial trap, which I would not throw it to the weak side of the floor because you’ve got Ella and usually (Aubrey) Wilson. That’s a hard trap to get out of. One really physical kid that’s not going to let you out and then our length. We saw that, and then if you noticed, we extended Bolinger up into the high post a little bit to free up our opposite top a little bit more to chase. Whenever we do that within our ‘50’ (halfcourt trap) defense, we’re pretty confident out front. We started to get some steals. That kind of got us going.”
Rochester’s third quarter run started with a Clevenger 3-pointer. Aubrey Wilson hit two free throws at the 4:25 mark. Then Ella McCarter found Audrey Bolinger for a layup on an inbounds play.
Brynn Berndt split a pair of free throws with 3:12 left in the quarter, but Hunter hit a pair of treys from the left corner. The lead was 15.
A pullup 17-footer from McCarter with seven seconds left in the quarter that came shortly after Clevenger left the game after taking an inadvertent shot to the mouth that drew blood capped the run and gave Rochester a 36-19 lead.
“Again, that was probably the biggest point in the game, and we just talked about that in the locker room,” Culver coach Adam Neace said. “We got the looks that we wanted there in the third quarter, but again, we weren’t shooting out of it, we were trying to pass out of it, we were trying to do silly things instead of just being aggressive. Hey, we can get that layup. Let’s just try to take our layup. We’d kind of get it down there, they brought the trap, turned us over a couple times. We got really stagnant in the third quarter.”
Culver got as close as 13 in the fourth quarter, but two more Hunter treys made it 42-25, and Clevenger completed the scoring with another 3 with 2:54 left.
“Burrus did a great job of putting his two best shooters on that side,” Neace said. “And again especially tonight. We knew that four of them could especially shoot it. … When they put Clevenger and Hunter on that side, they really put us in a bind because they had that dribble drive. Our top guard would guard it, and our forward would be out of position to try to get the reversal, and we had nobody there for that swing to Hunter.”
Burrus referred to Hunter as a "stretch four,” a basketball term for a power forward that is capable of shooting from the perimeter.
“The big thing we’ve looked at in our power offense that we go to when they start to extend out, we’ve talked about the stretch four with her,” Burrus said. “She is that stretch four spot in that offense for us. So we can flash her, or when the ball swings, we can dive her all the way to the corner, and now Bolinger can dive to that block. She got a lot of good looks.”
Culver jumped out to a 10-5 lead as Brynn Berndt hit a 19-footer, Williams scored twice in the paint, and the quick McCune scored twice in transition.
But Rochester responded with a 10-0 run covering the first and second quarters. Hunter hit a 3 from the left corner and then the right corner against Culver’s 2-3 zone. Bolinger hit two free throws with 15.6 seconds left in the quarter.
A steal and uncontested layup for Wilson with 6:30 left in the half capped the run and gave Rochester a 15-10 lead. It was 21-16 at halftime.
Game notes
Culver’s Haylie Parker and Rochester’s Jadyn Field remained out due to injuries.
Their schedule backloaded after their volleyball team made it to semistate, this started a stretch for Culver in which they will play 10 games in 20 days.
Rochester will play Clinton Prairie at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Jan. 3 at Kouts in the Small School Classic holiday tournament. They will play a second game that day against either North White or Kouts. Rochester is the defending tournament champion.
Rochester 45, Culver 27
CULVER (27) (2-4)
Ava McCune 5 0-0 10, Brynn Berndt 1 1-2 3, Ashlynn Berndt 0 0-0 0, Brooke Davis 0 0-0 0, Amiyah Williams 5 1-3 11, Maddy Hamilton 0 0-0 0, Brianna Schlemmer 1 0-0 3, Chloe Lewis 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 12 2-5 27
ROCHESTER (45) (7-2)
Aubrey Wilson 1 2-2 4, Rylee Clevenger 3 1-2 10, Brailyn Hunter 6 0-0 18, Ella McCarter 3 0-0 7, Audrey Bolinger 2 2-2 6, Emma Mathias 0 0-0 0, Constance Velez 0 0-0 0, Kyla Conley 0 0-0 0, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 15 5-6 45
Three-point field goals:
Culver 1 (Schlemmer),
Rochester 10 (Hunter 6, Clevenger 3, McCarter)
Total fouls: Culver 8, Rochester 13
Technical foul: A. Berndt (CUL), 3:24, second
Turnovers: Culver 18, Rochester 16
Score by quarters
Culver 10 6 3 8 – 27
Rochester 13 8 15 9 – 45
