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Stesiak falls in first game against Lady Zs
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
WINAMAC — Rily Holloway scored a game-high 13 points and kickstarted a 24-1 run with a left corner 3-pointer, and Emma Howdeshell added 11 to lead the Rochester girls basketball team to a 40-19 win over host Winamac on Nov. 26.
The 19 points the Lady Zs allowed were a season low. They limited Winamac to four field goals, one in each quarter, while forcing 29 turnovers.
Piper Link scored six points, all on free throws, to lead Winamac.
Rochester won their fourth straight game and improved to 4-4. Winamac fell to 0-8.
Not all the news was good for Rochester: Sophomore forward Ella McCarter left with an apparent right hamstring injury in the third quarter and did not return.
The game marked Winamac coach Tony Stesiak’s first career game coached against Rochester, and it came in his 18th season as a varsity head coach. Stesiak coached Rochester in 2000-17 and is the all-time winningest coach in Lady Z history.
Stesiak’s Lady Warriors were hanging within 10-9 on a 3-pointer from Kandace Kroft and two Link free throws with 5:04 left in the half.
The Lady Zs responded by putting Winamac in a 12-minute field goal drought with their 2-3 zone.
“She’s a good player,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said of Winamac freshman Kandace Kroft, who was held to three points. “She’s going to have a nice career here. I know coach Stesiak’s excited to coach her and probably one of the reasons why he was excited to take this job. She’s going to be a good player. The younger kids at times, they over dribble. Tonight we wanted her to put the ball on the floor because when she’s standing and set to shoot, her and (Maggie) Smith are deadly. … In film and in our scouting report, it was make them put the basketball on the floor, and we were able to do that and create some deflections that led to steals. … We were active on the ball.”
Holloway started the run with her 3, but Rochester had more offensive success off the drive. Howdeshell scored off the drive to make it 15-9. A Kallie Watson driving bucket made it 17-9, a Sydney Haughs bucket off a Watson assist made it 19-9, and a Watson runner in the lane made it 21-9 by halftime.
“They were face-guarding Rily Holloway, so I knew there were going to be some open looks,” Watson said. “We worked on it in practice. We haven’t really drove this year. We’ve just been shooting the three-ball a lot, so it’s about time that we started getting open looks at the rim and not just relying that three-ball.”
A Haughs putback, a Rylee Clevenger 3-pointer, a Howdeshell free throw and a Howdeshell coast-to-coast basket to start the second half extended the lead to 20.
A Maggie Smith free throw for Winamac cut the lead to 29-10, but Haughs split a pair of free throws, and Holloway scored twice in transition to extend the lead to 24.
“I was happy with the fact that early on we got to the basket,” Burrus said. “We’ve lived and died by the stinkin’ three it seems like all year. We’ve been really talking to these girls about being more aggressive to the bucket.”
Winamac claimed the JV game 20-9 behind Marissa Iverson’s 12 points. Cyaira Wolford added four, and Corinne Ulerick and Brooke Rausch had two points each.
Darah Strasser led the Rochester JV with six points, and Mia Howdeshell had three.
Rochester 40, Winamac 19
ROCHESTER (40) (4-4)
Rily Holloway 6 0-1 13, Rylee Clevenger 3 0-0 7, Emma Howdeshell 4 3-5 11, Sydney Haughs 2 1-2 5, Ella McCarter 0 0-0 0, Maddie Heinzmann 0 0-0 0, Kallie Watson 2 0-2 4, Mia Howdeshell 0 0-0 0, Darah Strasser 0 0-0 0, Emily Vigar 0 0-0 0, Elizabeth Weaver 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 17 4-10 40
WINAMAC (19) (0-8)
Maggie Smith 1 1-2 4, Kandace Kroft 1 0-0 3, Chloe Rausch 0 0-0 0, Piper Link 0 6-6 6, Hailey Attinger 1 0-2 2, Lily Bennett 0 1-2 1, Mershai Loehmer 0 1-3 1, Lauren Bruce 0 0-0 0, Marissa Iverson 0 0-0 0, Emma Goodman 0 0-0 0, Kaelyn O’Connor 1 0-0 2, Corinne Ulerick 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 4 9-15 19
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 2 (Holloway, Clevenger),
Winamac 2 (Smith, Kroft)
Total fouls: Rochester 16, Winamac 15
Turnovers: Rochester 14, Winamac 29
Score by quarters
Rochester 10 11 13 6 – 40
Winamac 4 5 3 7 – 19
JV: Winamac 20, Rochester 9
