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impleman scores 15, Scales adds 13
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
After both Rily Holloway and Emma Howdeshell both banked in 3-pointers in the first half of their game with visiting Caston Saturday, Rochester girls basketball coach Joel Burrus said he thought about booking a flight to Las Vegas.
The Lady Comets, however, made sure Rochester’s luck ran out.
Addison Zimpleman scored 11 of her game-high 15 points in the second half, and Isabel Scales added 13 points and eight rebounds for Caston as they rallied from a 20-point first-half deficit to beat the Lady Zs 38-34.
Caston improved to 2-0 and beat Rochester for the third straight year.
“We just never gave up,” Scales said. “That’s something I just love about our team. No matter what’s happened, we have each other’s back, and we’ll fight for each other, and that’s what just got us back into the game.”
Howdeshell scored 10 to lead the Lady Zs, who fell to 0-2. Sophomores Rylee Clevenger and Ella McCarter had eight points each, and Holloway had seven.
Rochester hit six 3-pointers while Caston hit none, but the Lady Comets outscored Rochester 16-2 from the foul line.
Caston also protected the ball, committing 12 turnovers while Rochester had 22, including 10 giveaways in the fourth quarter.
Rochester coach Joel Burrus said his players had tired legs and started telegraphing passes.
“We got gassed and lost our mind and started turning the ball over,” Burrus said. “We worked on their press. We knew they were going to run that diamond. We worked on it for a half an hour. The breaker was fine. We just lost our mind.”
Rochester led 13-0 after one quarter, and they went on another 8-0 run in the second quarter after treys from Howdeshell and Clevenger to grab a 23-3 lead.
Caston did not record their first field goal against Rochester’s 2-3 zone until a Zimpleman 15-footer with 1:28 left in the half, and Macee Hinderlider and Kinzie Mollenkopf turned steals into buckets as a 23-3 deficit became 23-12 at halftime.
But the final blow was a methodical 17-0 run covering a nine-minute span of the third and fourth quarters following a Holloway 14-footer off the dribble that gave the Lady Zs a 29-21 lead with 1:22 left in the third quarter.
Zimpleman hit three of four free throws in the final 36.1 seconds of the third quarter. Scales split a pair of free throws with 7:49 left.
Mollenkopf found Scales on the left block for a layup. Zimpleman tied the game at 29 on two free throws with 4:59 left and gave Caston their first lead at 30-29 on a free throw with 3:47 left.
A Scales jumper from the high post made it 32-29. A Hinderlider steal and short jumper in the lane pushed the lead to five. Then Caston broke Rochester’s fullcourt press and Zimpleman found Mollenkopf for a layup and a 36-29 lead.
Two Zimpleman free throws with 44.5 seconds left capped the run.
“Honestly, I think what I told them after the first quarter was, ‘Just relax,’” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “We’ve got to lock in on defense. We’ve got to do a better job there limiting them to one and done. Offensively, we’re getting shots; they’re just not falling. I said we needed to attack the baseline, which it took until after halftime to get that done.”
Holloway opened the scoring with a banked 3-pointer, and a more intentionally banked in drive from Holloway made it 5-0. A top-of-the-key 3 and a putback from McCarter made it 10-0, and a Clevenger trey from the left wing made it 13-0 after one quarter.
Rochester went on another 8-0 run in the second quarter on a Howdeshell pullup 12-footer, another 3-pointer off the glass from Howdeshell and Clevenger’s second 3-pointer.
“Zero in that first quarter,” Burrus said of Caston’s first quarter output. “I told them, ‘You didn’t keep the hammer down. … The boat was rocking, but we didn’t give them the knockout punch.”
Caston also won the JV game 11-10. Kylee Logan led Caston with five points. Olivia Thomas had three, Autumn Miller had two, and Kylie Reidenbach had one.
Darah Strasser led the Rochester JV with six points, and Emily Vigar had four.
Game notes
Rochester senior guard Kallie Watson missed her second straight game with a left ankle injury. Burrus said she has participated in enough practices to be eligible.
Rochester sophomore forward Audrey Bolinger will miss the season after undergoing left knee surgery. Bolinger suffered the injury during the spring. Bolinger played with the injury for the Lady Z volleyball team this fall but told Burrus that she would undergo surgery shortly after the volleyball team’s season ended in the sectional final on Oct. 15. “She couldn’t make it any worse, but it was what it was,” Burrus explained. “So it was just a matter of when was she going to get the surgery.”
Scales complimented Hinderlider, whose two baskets came off turnovers that she forced.
“Macee was huge,” Scales said. “She started it. I like to call her the little gnat. She’s up in people’s business. She makes them mad. Makes them turn it over. She got us going on defense, and then everybody just flew around. That’s the best we’ve ever done that man press before.”
Caston 38, Rochester 34
CASTON (38) (2-0)
Addison Zimpleman 2 11-17 15, Kinzie Mollenkopf 3 0-3 6, Annie Harsh 0 0-0 0, Isabel Scales 4 5-8 13, Bailey Harness 0 0-2 0, Macee Hinderlider 2 0-0 4
TEAM: 11 16-30 38
ROCHESTER (34) (0-2)
Rily Holloway 3 0-0 7, Rylee Clevenger 3 0-0 8, Emma Howdeshell 4 0-0 10, Ella McCarter 3 1-2 8, Sydney Haughs 0 1-2 1, Maddie Heinzmann 0 0-0 0, Darah Strasser 0 0-0 0, Elizabeth Weaver 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 2-4 34
Three-point field goals:
Caston 0,
Rochester 6 (Howdeshell 2, Clevenger 2, McCarter, Holloway)
Total fouls: Caston 12, Rochester 23
Turnovers: Caston 12, Rochester 22
Score by quarters
Caston 0 12 12 14 – 38
Rochester 13 10 6 5 – 34
JV: Caston 11, Rochester 10 (two quarters)
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