BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
AKRON — Asked before the season, Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball coach Chris Kindig used the adverb “extremely” three times before the adjective “hard” when describing the level of effort that senior guard Ava Egolf gives.
Egolf’s performance against South Bend St. Joe might be considered extremely, extremely, extremely dominant as she outscored the entire Lady Indian team with 21 points as Valley cruised to a 54-18 win.
Valley improved to 2-0. South Bend St. Joe fell to 0-1.
Ava Smith added nine points for the Lady Vikings, who smothered South Bend St. Joe with a 2-3 zone, a 1-3-1 zone, a man-to-man, a halfcourt trap and a fullcourt press.
Valley forced 25 turnovers and South Bend St. Joe made just one of 25 3-point attempts. They held South Bend St. Joe without a field goal in the second and fourth quarters.
Even though top defender Chesnee Miller and post player Kelsey Cox picked up two fouls in the first quarter and Gaby Gonzalez picked up her second foul in the second quarter, Valley continued to be stifling on defense. Carlee Snyder, a 6-1 junior reserve forward, played on top of the 1-3-1 zone.
“It was because we got in a little bit of foul trouble,” Valley coach Chris Kindig said of the 2-3 zone and the 1-3-1 zone, which the team played primarily in the final three quarters. “So all of a sudden, I’m playing three bigs out there sometimes. So we had to go to the zone just to be able to match up a little bit better. And I like our length of some of the girls I bring in, so we can get out on their shooters a little bit. It made it difficult for them to get good looks out there.”
Kayla Woods led South Bend St. Joe with six points and four rebounds. Kenadie Schrock, who averaged 12 points per game last year and was South Bend St. Joe’s leading returning scorer, was held to three points.
“Our goal is to keep the other team guessing,” Egolf said. “When they come out, they’re not going to know what we’re in, and what we’re in, we’re aggressive, and we’re not going to back down. We’re going to keep at it no matter who it is.”
Valley went on a 20-2 run starting in the final minute of the first quarter and running all the way into the first two minutes of the third quarter to open up a 34-12 lead, and the lead stayed over 20 points the rest of the way.
Egolf scored 10 points in the first quarter. She hit four of six free throws, scored twice where she worked a handoff screen from Kelsey Cox and scored on a layup set up by Miller’s steal and assist.
Egolf split two defenders and drove to the hoop for a bucket and hit an open 3 from the right wing within the first 45 seconds of the second quarter to increase the lead to 20-10.
“I sense it’s been a little difficult because I’m new and they don’t know me very well,” Egolf, a move-in from Warsaw, said. “So I’m trying to lead more by example and have a strong presence rather than a big voice.”
Kindig said Egolf has had to adjust to more of a perimeter role at her new school.
“She’s going to fit in really well with us because of the way she plays,” Kindig said. “And that’s the way we want to play. I wouldn’t say that about every girl. … She just does those things that we really like her to do, and she plays big for her height. I think where she was at before, she played more on the interior, so she’s kind of feeling her oats a little out here.”
South Bend St. Joe won the JV game 32-30. The game ended when Hadley Wise’s leaner in the lane was determined to have occurred just after the final buzzer. Wise led Valley with 14 points, Lindahl Walls had six, Maycee Koch had five, Izzy Woodruff had four, and Lillie Koch had one.
Valley 54, South Bend St. Joe 18
SOUTH BEND ST. JOE (18) (0-1)
Eliana Lang 0 0-0 0, Kenadie Schrock 1 0-0 3, Kayla Woods 2 2-4 6, Grace Scicchitano 1 1-2 3, Nicki Byrne 1 1-2 3, Michelle Carter 0 0-0 0, Annie Cummings 0 0-0 0, Trinity Parker 0 0-0 0, Maggie Jenkins 1 1-3 3, Reese Hull 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 6 5-11 18
VALLEY (54) (2-0)
Gaby Gonzalez 2 0-0 4, Chesnee Miller 3 0-0 6, Ava Egolf 6 7-10 21, Ava Smith 3 3-4 9, Kelsey Cox 2 0-0 4, Hadley Wise 2 0-0 4, Macy Petersen 1 1-2 3, Carlee Snyder 1 1-2 3, Lucy Hayden 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 20 12-18 54
Three-point field goals:
South Bend St. Joe 1 (Schrock),
Valley 2 (Egolf 2)
Total fouls: South Bend St. Joe 17, Valley 14
Turnovers: South Bend St. Joe 25, Valley 22
Score by quarters
SB St. Joe 10 2 5 1 – 18
Valley 15 15 10 14 – 54
JV: SB St. Joe 32, Valley 30
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