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Hunter scores career-high 13 off the bench for Rochester
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Samantha Redinger scored 25 points, including buzzer-beating shots at the end of the first and third quarters, and Ellie Bollenbacher had 14 points and 10 rebounds to help the Argos girls basketball team pull away from cold-shooting Rochester 59-34 on Dec. 7.
Sophia Austin scored a career-high six points off the bench, all in the fourth quarter, and Morgyn Barcus canned a pair of 3-pointers for Argos, who improved to 4-6.
Brailyn Hunter scored a career-high 13 points off the bench for Rochester, who dropped to 5-6. Fellow freshman Aubrey Wilson added 11.
However, Rochester shot just 27 percent from the field and committed 16 turnovers. Wilson and Rylee Clevenger,
Rochester’s most prolific 3-point shooters, went a combined 1 for 15 from behind the arc.
The teams have split their last six meetings.
“The person that hurt us was Bollenbacher,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “To me, that was the killer.”
Bollenbacher seemed to take advantage when Rochester focused their defense on Redinger, who came in leading the state in scoring at 34 ppg.
“She was finding the openings,” Argos coach Scott Jennings said. “When two people are jumping out on Redinger, she’s going to find those openings in there. She’s so strong with the ball. She can score. She can hit her free throws. I thought she did a great job of finding the ball and the openings and where she needed to be.”
Already leading 48-32, Rochester tried to press to get back in it, but Argos pulled away with an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter. Redinger had a pair of steals and layups and also hit a short banker, and Bollenbacher put in three of four free throws.
Redinger outscored the entire Rochester team 9-8 in the first quarter, including a pullup 15-footer at the horn that gave Argos a seven-point lead.
Argos built the lead to 26-17 at halftime as Redinger, Barcus and Alydiah Leed each dropped in a 3-pointer. That helped offset Hunter’s seven points in the quarter and a late Wilson short banker that Mia Howdeshell set up with a save near the baseline.
Rochester got within eight on a Jadyn Field free throw with 5:44 left in the third, but that was as close as they got in the second half. On the next possession, Redinger snapped a pass to a cutting Bollenbacher for a layup to make it 28-18.
They trailed 34-24 after a Hunter pullup 10-footer, but a Bollenbacher putback and a Redinger steal and layup got the lead to 14.
That set up Redinger, who passed to Leed with four seconds left, ran behind a Barcus flare screen and then sweetly swished a 23-footer as time expired to make it 41-24.
“She’s become a leader,” Jennings said of Redinger. “And that’s what I needed her to do to step up. You saw her pass the ball tonight. She was finding people that were open. She moves well without the ball. If you would have told me she had been moving this well a couple years ago when she liked to stand out on the wing and just wait for the ball to come to her … she’s finding the ball. She’s moving. The rest of her team is setting screens for her and finding her, but if they’re double-teaming her, she’s finding people too. I thought our ball movement on the offense was excellent.”
Redinger has already recorded the two highest-scoring games in Argos history this season: She scored 47 in a 67-31 win over Elkhart Christian on Nov. 11 and 50 in a 69-22 win over Trinity Greenlawn on Nov. 17.
This was Argos’ first win in which Redinger did not single-handedly outscore the opponent. Redinger loved the overall teamwork.
“Everyone was passing to everyone,” Redinger said. “Everyone was hitting their shots. Energy was really high.”
She said the season has been occasionally frustrating. She described herself as “really quiet and shy,” but as the player with the most previous playing experience, coaches expect her to speak up and lead. She said she has had to “step out of her comfort zone.”
“We know we’re better than we’ve played in some of the games, but we’re starting to show it,” Redinger said.
Meanwhile, Argos perplexed Rochester with their 1-3-1 zone defense with Barcus on top of the zone.
“The 1-3-1 has been our go-to (defense) from the start,” Jennings said. “I’m more of a man-to-man person, but we play so well out of the 1-3-1, and I thought tonight it was very effective. I thought our guards did a great job getting out on their shooters. Our post players played well. I thought our positioning in the 1-3-1 was excellent tonight.”
Burrus wants to see his players get the ball in the post against that type of defense.
“We kind of lived and died by the 3 there in the first quarter,” Burrus said. “You’ve got to attack that defense. I mean, you noticed there’s not a lot of pressure. They’re not putting a lot of pressure on you, so you’ve got to attack and draw two or draw three. I told them at halftime we looked like we were in a phone booth dribbling. You’ve got to get somewhere with your dribble. When you reverse the ball, you’ve got to attack and the corners are open. We tried to post a little bit in the first half with the bigs down there off that – reverse, take a hard dribble that way, look down there. We were glued side to side.”
Argos 59, Rochester 34
ARGOS (59) (4-6)
Samantha Redinger 9 5-6 25, Alydiah Leed 1 0-0 3, Morgyn Barcus 2 0-0 6, Aleasia Sarver 2 1-2 5, Ellie Bollenbacher 5 4-6 14, Sophia Ausrtin 3 0-0 6, Kinzlee Kelly 0 0-0 0, Lexi Gibson 0 0-0 0, Leah Pizzuto 0 0-0 0, Grace Thomas 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 22 10-14 59
ROCHESTER (34) (5-6)
Aubrey Wilson 5 0-0 11, Rylee Clevenger 0 0-0 0, Ella McCarter 3 0-0 6, Jadyn Field 1 2-4 4, Audrey Bolinger 0 0-0 0, Brailyn Hunter 5 2-2 13, Mia Howdeshell 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 14 4-6 34
Three-point field goals:
Argos 5 (Redinger 2, Barcus 2, Leed),
Rochester 2 (Hunter, Wilson)
Total fouls: Argos 13, Rochester 13
Turnovers: Argos 12, Rochester 16
Score by quarters
Argos 15 11 15 18 – 59
Rochester 8 9 7 10 – 34
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