Val T.
- Dec 12, 2020
- 3 min read

Mellott scores 12, but Warsaw girls rout Valley

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

WARSAW –- The Tiger Den at Warsaw High School is the site of perhaps the greatest win in Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball history.

What happened Monday was on the other end of the spectrum.

Abby Sanner scored 11 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, and Kensie Ryman also scored 11 for Warsaw in a 64-27 rout of the Lady Vikings.

Warsaw improved to 7-2. Valley fell to 4-3.

Kacilyn Krebs, Audrey Grimm and Bailie Stephens added nine each for the Lady Tigers.

Kaydence Mellott scored eight of her game-high 12 points for Valley in the fourth quarter. But by then, Valley trailed 54-13.

Sidney Wagner added seven points, freshman reserve guard Chesnee Miller had five, and Corinna Stiles had three.

Valley had nine fouls to Warsaw’s 15, and Valley (15) had fewer turnovers than Warsaw (16) too. But Warsaw controlled the boards 46-15 overall – it was a 19-3 board edge in the first half – as Valley played their fifth straight game without senior post player Hayley Backus, who has a torn right ACL.

“That’s been one of our issues this year,” Valley coach Chris Kindig said. “I know in the Plymouth game (a 71-61 loss on Dec. 3), we were outrebounded by 20-some. So part of it could be is this is our fourth game in seven days. … I think we maybe ran out of juice a little bit tonight. We still have to come back and play on Wednesday (against Triton). Warsaw is obviously a very physical team, and when you’re the physical aggressor, you’re going to get those extra rebounds there, or you’re going to get that loose ball. Give Warsaw credit. They played really well tonight.”

Warsaw also limited Wagner’s output. She had 24 points against Warsaw last year. She picked up her second foul with 7:21 left in the first half, and Warsaw outscored Valley 24-4 in the second quarter to claim a 37-9 halftime lead.

“She has played and will play a lot better than what she did tonight,” Kindig said of Wagner. “But she’s got to have help. I thought that maybe she pressed a little bit tonight and maybe felt like she needed to do a little bit more than what she really needed to do. But we’ve got to have other girls step up and want the basketball in those situations. We’re going to learn from this and hopefully we can get this fixed. … I think the theme here is she can’t do it by herself. She’s got to have help, and again, she can’t allow one game where she wasn’t on to affect the rest of her year and destroy her year. I think she has enough confidence in herself that I think she’ll come back strong.”

Valley beat Rochester 60-45 at a jam-packed Class 3A semistate game at the Tiger Den in 2015. This time, Valley played at sparsely populated and socially distanced Tiger Den. The atmosphere was nothing like that of five years ago when Valley earned their trip to the state finals.

Defensive issues, both in man and zone, abound.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a lot to be positive about right now defensively,” Kindig said. “Again, obviously rebounding is a big thing. You can put all kinds of effort into playing defense, but if you can’t get the defensive rebound, that really doesn’t do you a lot of good. And so we’re just going to have to go back to the drawing board as far as what we look at and what we do in practice as far as our rebounding.”

Warsaw also won the JV game 43-28.

Valley notes

The North Miami-Valley game scheduled for Friday was postponed due to coronavirus concerns at North Miami and rescheduled for 6:15 p.m./7:45 p.m. on Jan. 21.
Valley has added a home game with Fairfield to its schedule. The teams will meet at 6:15 p.m./7:45 p.m. (JV/Varsity) on Dec. 17. The Valley-Winamac game scheduled for that day has been postponed due to a coronavirus-related quarantine of all Winamac sports.

Warsaw 64, Valley 27

VALLEY (27) (4-3)

Lily Ault 0 0-0 0, Ashley Butler 0 0-0 0, Sidney Wagner 3 1-3 7, Kaydence Mellott 3 4-5 12, Corinna Stiles 1 1-3 3, Rily Holloway 0 0-0 0, Molly Moriarty 0 0-2 0, Macy Peterson 0 0-0 0, Mercedes Snapp 0 0-0 0, Chesnee Miller 2 1-2 5

TEAM: 9 7-15 27

WARSAW (64) (7-2)

Kensie Ryman 4 2-2 11, Kendall Wayne 1 0-0 2, Audrey Grimm 3 3-3 9, Kacilyn Krebs 3 0-0 9, Abby Sanner 4 3-4 11, Zoe Bergan 1 2-2 4, Bailie Stephens 4 1-2 9, Lauren Grose 2 1-2 5, Hannah Hatfield 0 0-0 0, Abby Taylor 1 0-0 2, Ava Wetzel 1 0-0 2

TEAM: 24 12-15 64

Three-point field goals:

Valley 2 (Mellott 2),

Warsaw 4 (Krebs 3, Ryman)

Total fouls: Valley 9, Warsaw 15

Turnovers: Valley 15, Warsaw 16

Score by quarters

Valley 5 4 4 14 – 27