BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
MONTICELLO — Rochester girls basketball coach Joel Burrus said his team’s defensive motor always must be running at 110 percent every possession, even when they are not hitting shots.
That was one of the issues he spotted in the Lady Zs’ 45-23 loss to Westfield in the third-place game at the Twin Lakes Holiday Invitational at Alva R. Staggs Gymnasium at Roosevelt Middle School Wednesday night.
Sophomore forward Lindsey Van Dyke and junior guard Ellie Kelleher scored 10 points each to lead Westfield, who improved to 9-7.
Rily Holloway hit four 3-pointers in the second half and led Rochester (7-9) with 13 points. Ella McCarter had six off the bench, and Sydney Haughs had four.
Both Holloway and Emma Howdeshell, who led the team with six points in a loss to Crown Point earlier Wednesday, were named to the all-tournament team.
But Rochester had more turnovers (25) than points against Westfield’s lengthy man-to-man defense.
Defensively, after giving up 13 3-pointers in a loss to Crown Point in the semifinals earlier Wednesday, Rochester yielded seven more 3-pointers to Westfield.
Westfield jumped out to a 12-2 lead and never trailed.
Rochester got within 12-7 on a Haughs 3-pointer and a McCarter pullup 12-footer with 7:32 left in the half.
Westfield coach Kelsey Key called a 30-second timeout with 6:30 left in the half, the Lady Rocks followed with a 21-1 run that bled into the third quarter.
The run included one 3-pointer each from Emmrey Collinsworth, Kelleher and Aubrey Crockett.
“The only way we can win is if we play really good defense,” Burrus said. “I would have been interested to see if we could have held them in the 30s and hit a couple more shots to put a little more heat on them. That could have been a little more interesting fourth quarter, but the credit goes to Crown Point and Westfield though; they’re both really good teams.”
Rochester trailed 30-8 at halftime against Crown Point and 29-8 at halftime against Westfield. Burrus set a goal of outscoring Westfield in the second half. As it turned out, Westfield outscored Rochester 16-15 in the second 16 minutes.
“I thought the second half of this game was a lot better,” Burrus said. “The first half, we did not play well. I think the layoff in between games there, we just kinda came out dead, and it took me coming in here at halftime, and we tightened the grip a little bit on that. … We came in at halftime and said we got to win the second half. I wasn’t going to flip out on them from the standpoint of these were two really good teams. Crown Point is two years off winning a state championship. They’ve got some high-level players. And obviously, Westfield, they’ve got one of the best schedules in the state. They’re 8-7 going into the game, but their schedule’s just unbelievable.”
In other games, Class 3A, No. 1 Twin Lakes won the title and improved to 16-0 with a 60-51 win over Crown Point; Mount Vernon (Fortville) took down Clinton Prairie 36-26 in the fifth-place game; and Kankakee Valley edged North White 47-44 in the seventh-place game.
Westfield 45, Rochester 23
ROCHESTER (23) (7-9)
Rily Holloway 4 1-2 13, Rylee Clevenger 0 0-0 0, Kallie Watson 0 0-0 0, Emma Howdeshell 0 0-0 0, Sydney Haughs 1 2-3 4, Maddie Heinzmann 0 0-0 0, Mia Howdeshell 0 0-0 0, Darah Strasser 0 0-0 0, Emily Vigar 0 0-0 0, Ella McCarter 3 0-0 6, Elizabeth Weaver 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 8 3-5 23
WESTFIELD (45) (9-7)
Ellie Kelleher 4 0-0 10, Aubrey Crockett 3 0-0 8, Emmrey Collinsworth 2 0-0 6, Lindsey Van Dyke 4 2-2 10, Kiki Loveless 0 2-2 2, Meg Hamilton 0 0-0 0, Brittany Brown 1 0-0 2, Reagan Lorenzen 0 0-0 0, Maren Dee 1 0-0 2, Mia Crask 0 0-0 0, Sam Price 1 0-0 2, MaKayla Hatcher 1 0-0 3, Madeline Linville 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 17 4-4 45
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 4 (Holloway 4),
Westfield 7 (Kelleher 2, Crockett 2, Collinsworth 2, Hatcher)
Total fouls: Rochester 5, Westfield 9
Turnovers: Rochester 25, Westfield 9
Score by quarters
Rochester 5 3 8 7 – 23
Westfield 12 17 6 10 – 45
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