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Peterson hits 4 treys, scores 16 for Culver in loss
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
CULVER — Filling in at point guard for the injured Ashlynn Brooke, Hailey Cripe scored 18 points and pulled down 18 rebounds to lead the Pioneer girls basketball team to a 49-31 win over host Culver on Nov. 20.
Brooklyn Borges and Makenna Strycker added eight points each, Kylie Attinger had
seven, and Mandee Weisenburger had six for Pioneer, who led wire to wire and improved to 4-0 after winning its second Hoosier North game in as many nights.
The Lady Panthers were coming off a 62-48 win over Knox at home on Friday. Brooke scored 27 points, grabbed nine rebounds and dished out three assists before leaving in the third quarter with an ankle injury.
Cripe moved over and played the point as part of a three-guard alignment that also included Strycker and fellow senior Macee Baker.
Rose Peterson hit four 3-pointers and scored 16 points for Culver, who fell to 2-6, 0-2.
Culver was coming off a 38-33 win over Elkhart Christian two days earlier in which they rallied from a 13-1 deficit after one quarter.
This time, they fell behind again 13-1 and could not come back.
“That’s been our bugaboo the whole year long,” Culver coach Shane Lowry said of the slow starts.
Borges scored on an up-and-under move, and Cripe scored on a putback and again in transition. That led to a Culver 30-second timeout just two minutes in.
A Baker steal and layup and a Strycker free throw made it 9-0. After a Grace Sieber free throw ended Culver’s drought of 5:56 to start the game, Cripe fed Borges for a layup, and Strycker found Weisenburger in transition.
Strycker is a freshman, and Weisenburger and Attinger are also getting their first extensive varsity minutes. Baker is a senior but missed all of last season after knee surgery. They have been meshing with veterans Cripe, Borges and Maggie Steffel.
“Some of these girls don’t have varsity time, and I think our veterans have done a nice job of welcoming them in,” Pioneer coach Jeff Brooke said. “Even tonight, I saw Hailey Cripe say something to Makenna Strycker – some encouraging words. ‘Hey, you might want to think about this.’ You know, same thing bringing in Mandee Weisenburger. Hailey did a nice job of that as well. Kylie Attinger has done, in my opinion, for a sophomore who didn’t get any varsity time … I can’t have her off the floor.”
Culver opened the second half with a 7-2 burst and stayed within 26-19 on an Avery Garland 19-footer from the right wing, but Pioneer served the Lady Cavs with a 16-0 run to take a 23-point lead.
Cripe had seven points during the run, including a banked 3-pointer that capped the run. Attinger also had five points during the run.
The way the scoring broke down without Ashlynn Brooke pleased coach Brooke. Cripe continued being a proficient rebounder – she’s averaging 16 boards per game – while also taking on a larger ballhandling role.
“I thought the girls did a great job really handling their pressure defense,” coach Brooke said. “They were switching it. They started off in a box-in-one on Hailey, which didn’t surprise me. Hailey did a nice job getting the ball to people that were open, and those girls were knocking them down. Really proud of how Borges, Attinger and Weisenburger did a nice job hitting those.”
Culver scored fewer than 40 points for the fifth consecutive game.
The inability to get back in transition defense was also bothersome to Lowry, especially given that the transition game is a staple of Pioneer’s offense.
“We knew they were going to be a transition team, and the scouting report, we were not following it,” Lowry said.
This was Culver’s eighth game in 17 days.
“The problem is our last two weeks have been scout-game-scout-game-scout-game,” Lowry said. “No practice time to even correct the little things. Tonight … they’re just that good, and we just had to make sure we told them one more time what to do. We struggle scoring, and that was another thing. We wanted to make sure that they understood what we were trying to do on offense.
“With a young team, that’s what you get.”
Pioneer 49, Culver 31
PIONEER (49) (4-0, 2-0)
Macee Baker 1 0-0 2, Hailey Cripe 8 0-0 18, Makenna Strycker 2 3-8 8, Kylie Attinger 3 1-3 7, Brooklyn Borges 4 0-0 8, Keirsten Nies 0 0-0 0, Kaia Murray 0 0-0 0, Mandee Weisenburger 3 0-0 6, Maggie Steffel 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 21 4-11 49
CULVER (31) (2-6, 0-2)
Grace Sieber 2 1-2 6, Rose Peterson 5 2-2 16, Luci Overmyer 0 0-0 0, Lizzie Pugh 0 0-0 0, Avery Garland 1 0-0 2, Brynn Berndt 1 0-0 2, Kaylee Hamilton 1 0-0 2, Kassidy Banks 1 0-0 3, Livi Overmyer 0 0-0 0, Maisy McCuen 0 0-0 0, Amiyah Williams 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 11 3-4 31
Three-point field goals:
Pioneer 3 (Cripe 2, Strycker),
Culver 6 (Peterson 4, Sieber, Banks)
Total fouls: Pioneer 7, Culver 13
Turnovers: Pioneer 20, Culver 20
Score by quarters
Pioneer 13 11 18 7 – 49
Culver 4 8 10 9 – 31
Watch full game here:
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