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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
FULTON — Bailey Harness had the game of a lifetime on a half.
The senior forward scored 22 points and 12 rebounds in the first half, helping the
Caston girls basketball team jump out to a 29-point halftime lead and cruise to a 63-34 win over sectional rival Frontier at the Comet Crater on Nov. 21.
Capable of scoring from long range while also claiming everything that bounced off the rim, Harness finished with 27 points and 16 rebounds. Isabel Scales added 18.
“Any night, any one of these six girls that have been playing major minutes can lead us in scoring,” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “Bailey shoots the ball extremely well in practice, especially from the outside. It was a matter of time before it came together for her. … She’s been putting the work in for the last couple years. But now is her opportunity as a senior to step up and take Maddi’s (Smith) place and stretch that floor out for us. Tonight she got it going, and when she got it going early, we just kept calling her number on certain set plays, and she kept knocking them down.”
Lacie Mears led Frontier with 12 points, all on 3-pointers and all in the second half. Haley Jay added 10, and Emma Sorensen had nine.
Caston, who moved up to No. 4 in the Class 1A coaches poll earlier in the day, improved to 7-0. They led by as many as 33 points in the fourth quarter.
Frontier fell to 1-6. They have lost their last four meetings against Caston.
Pressuring Frontier’s senior guards Sorensen and Mears, Frontier had 19 turnovers while Caston had seven.
Caston opened the game on a 14-1 run and never trailed. Harness had eight points during that run on a putback, a post banker, a transition layup off a Kinzioe Mollenkopf assist and a 15-footer off a Scales assist.
In the second quarter, Harness caught a heater behind the arc, draining four 3-pointers and outsourcing the entire Frontier team 14-10.
Harness said she worked on her 3-point shot over the summer to expand her offensive game.
“The past few summers, I’ve put in a lot of work,” Harness said.
Harness said it takes awhile to develop that confidence to keep firing.
“Last year, I struggled a lot with confidence and shooting, and this year, I just let it fly, I guess,” Harness said.
Scales added 11 points in the second quarter, including a long 2-pointer and a 3-pointer on consecutive possessions.
Caston went on a 17-0 run covering the second and third quarters as the lead reached 45-13.
“Most teams play zone against us,” Harness said. “We’re very comfortable in a zone. … We work on it all the time. We know how to get open in a zone. It’s just easy for us, I guess.”
Caston senior Ann Ulerick scored her second basket of the season before the final buzzer.
Caston 63, Frontier 34
FRONTIER (34) (1-6)
Lacie Mears 4 0-2 12, Emma Sorensen 3 0-1 9, Haley Jay 4 2-4 10, Madyson Mears 1 0-0 2, Ashlyn Minniear 0 0-0 0, Jareylle Gibbs 0 0-0 0, Adelyn Belt 0 0-0 0, Chutney Altman 0 0-0 0, Katie Kennedy 0 0-0 0, Kendall Bridwell 0 1-2 1
TEAM: 12 3-9 34
CASTON (63) (7-0)
Macee Hinderlider 3 0-0 6, Isabel Scales 5 7-9 18, Annie Harsh 1 0-0 2, Kinzie Mollenkopf 1 1-1 3, Bailey Harness 11 0-0 27, Olivia Thomas 0 0-0 0, Addison Zimpleman 2 0-0 5, Kaitlyn Hutsell 0 0-0 0, Ann Ulerick 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 24 8-10 63
Three-point field goals:
Frontier 9 (L. Mears 4, Sorensen 3),
Caston 7 (Harness 5, Scales, Zimpleman)
Total fouls: Frontier 10, Caston 13
Fouled out: M. Mears (FRO), 4:46, fourth
Turnovers: Frontier 19, Caston 7
Score by quarters
Frontier 3 10 9 12 – 34
Caston 14 28 12 9 – 63
