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Holloway leads Lady Zs with 8, but Lady Comets finish 10-0 at home
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Caston junior guard-forward Isabel Scales scored her 1,000th career point in the Lady Comets’ 47-25 win over Rochester Saturday. She is believed to be the first Caston girls basketball player to accomplish the feat in 26 years. (Photo provided by Dee Brown)
FULTON — Isabel Scales has scored a lot of points during her Caston basketball career.
Then again, she does so much more than score.
So Saturday’s home game against Rochester might have been her career in microcosm. She scored her 1,000th career point, and in the midst of an individual milestone, she wants to make it about her teammates and winning.
“It’s a relief,” Scales, a junior, said. “I’m so grateful for my teammates. Multiple (people) texted me and it's like, ‘Good luck today. You’ve got it. Just relax.’ I have a great team, great coaches and a great family that supports me through it all.”
Scales scored eight points and finished with exactly 1,000 for her career. Addison Zimpleman hit three 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 13. Bailey Harness added 12.
Caston jumped out to a 17-0 lead after one quarter in snapping a two-game losing streak. They finished the regular season 20-2 overall and 10-0 at home. Caston has not lost a home game since Knox beat them 41-35 on Dec. 17, 2020.
Riley Holloway led Rochester with eight points in the loss. Kallie Watson and Ella McCarter had six points each, and Rylee Clevenger had five.
Rochester finished the regular season 11-12. The Caston game was added to the schedule after the Northfield game was canceled. Northfield already had a makeup game scheduled with Southwood for Saturday, giving Rochester an opening in its schedule.
Rochester coach Joel Burrus said it was important to fill the void in the schedule. If they had not, there would have been a 10-day gap between their final regular season game and their sectional opener against Bremen on Tuesday.
“We had to play this game today to get our legs under us,” Burrus said. “We had to do that. If we wouldn’t have done that, this probably would be what you would have seen at the sectional. You just can’t take that much time off. I’m glad we played. Not all was lost by that.”
Caston’s opening run consisted of a Harness short jumper off a Scales assist, a Scales 3-pointer off a Harness assist, two Kinzie Mollenkopf free throws, a Harness 18-footer, a Harness putback, two Harness free throws, a Scales 13-footer and a Scales putback.
“Caston’s really good,” Burrus said. “They were chomping at the bit. I think it was flipped from the first game, wasn’t it? … You know, they play really good man defense. We went in at halftime and said, ‘You guys want to get open? You’ve got to screen people.’ We screened people in the second half. We went to our 1-3-1 back set. It’s a wheel set. We got some good stuff off that.
“My big thing was turnovers (and) offensive rebounds. We probably gave up more offensive rebounds in that first half than we have in our last eight quarters. Seriously. I don’t know how many we gave up, but it was a boatload. That’s not us.”
Rochester’s first points came on Kallie Watson’s 3-pointer in the first minute of the second quarter, but Scales’ free throw with 6:42 left in the half got her to 1,000, and there was a brief pause in the game to acknowledge the achievement.
Caston coach Josh Douglass said it was important to get a game in, or the team would have had a 10-day break between the Carroll (Flora) game and their sectional opener on Feb. 3.
“We didn’t really plan for Rochester because that was a last-minute add, but we’ve been working on a lot of zone offensive stuff because that’s what we’re going to see,” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “And I thought the girls did a beautiful job. The ball didn’t die in our hands. We were moving. We were cutting. We talked about last night (at practice) that maybe we had to start a little bit wider in our zone offense to be able to hit the cut quicker and move the ball quicker.”
As for Scales’ milestone, Douglass said it only gets to a part of what Scales does to affect winning.
“You know what, I’m proud of her,” Douglass said. “She works harder than anybody behind the scenes. And that’s an accomplishment. But that goes to all the hard work. Little kids have that dream of scoring 1,000 points. They think it’s easy to do. It’s not. It takes so much work behind the scenes to do it. I can’t be more proud of a hard-working kid that she is.
“It’s her ability to rebound, her ability to pass the ball, her defensive ability. You know, we’re really good when Isabel is on the court. Don’t get me wrong. But she does so much more than just score the ball to help our team win.”
Game notes
Caston junior Annie Harsh returned after missing two games – losses to North Miami and Carroll (Flora) – and hit two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.
Rochester scored only two points in the paint, none in the first three quarters.
This marked Burrus’ first game at Caston as an opposing coach. He was the Caston girls coach from 2014-16.
All 10 of Caston’s home wins this year were by double-digit margins.Caston can get another home game in the regional on Feb. 11 if they win Class 1A, Sectional 52. Caston will play either West Central or North White at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a sectional semifinal at Tri-County.
Caston also beat Rochester 38-34 at Rochester on Nov. 5. In that game, Rochester led 13-0 after one quarter.
Historical records for girls basketball are unclear, but Scales is believed to be the first Caston player to score 1,000 points since 1996 grad Amanda Wentzel.
Caston 47, Rochester 25
ROCHESTER (25) (11-12)
Rily Holloway 3 0-2 8, Rylee Clevenger 2 0-0 5, Kallie Watson 2 0-0 6, Emma Howdeshell 0 0-0 0, Sydney Haughs 0 0-0 0, Ella McCarter 2 0-2 6
TEAM: 9 0-4 25
CASTON (47) (20-2)
Macee Hinderlider 1 0-0 2, Isabel Scales 3 1-2 8, Addison Zimpleman 5 0-1 13, Kinzie Mollenkopf 1 2-2 4, Bailey Harness 5 2-2 12, Annie Harsh 2 0-0 6, Olivia Thomas 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 18 5-7 47
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 7 (Holloway 2, Watson 2, McCarter 2, Clevenger),
Caston 6 (Zimpleman 3, Harsh 2, Scales)
Total fouls: Rochester 11, Caston 9
Turnovers: Rochester 19, Caston 12
Score by quarters
Rochester 0 9 5 11 – 25
Caston 17 5 12 13 – 47
Caston’s Bailey Harness drives to the basket between Rochester’s Kallie Watson (10) and Ella McCarter during the Lady Comets’ 47-25 win Saturday. Harness scored 12 points. Caston (20-2) received a bye in Class 1A, Sectional 52 and will play either West Central or North White in a semifinal at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Tri-County. Rochester (11-12) will play Bremen in a Class 3A, Sectional 18 quarterfinal at Bremen at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. (Photo provided by Dee Brown)
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