Wilson scores 20, helps Rochester beat NM for 4th straight year
Donaldson, Hampton score 13 each, but Lady Warriors commit 22 turnovers
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Aubrey Wilson Jadyn Field Layla Hampton
DENVER — Rochester senior point guard Aubrey Wilson is feeling better, and opponents are paying the price.
Wilson scored nine of her game-high 20 points during a crucial 14-0 run in the second half, and Jadyn Field added 10 as the Lady Zs beat host North Miami 47-41 Wednesday.
Brailyn Hunter added seven for Rochester (3-0), who beat North Miami for the fourth straight year. None of the four wins have been by more than 10 points.
Rochester’s three senior starters – Wilson, Field and Hunter – combined to score 23 of their team’s 25 points in the second half.
Kayden Donaldson and Layla Hampton scored 13 points each for North Miami (1-2), but Donaldson, a versatile 5-10 forward who can both hit from the perimeter and score in the paint and who came in averaging 17.5 points per game, fouled out with 5:09 left.
Meanwhile, Rochester shook off early foul trouble and did not commit a foul in the fourth quarter while Wilson attacked the hoop. For the game, Wilson made more free throws (10) than the entire North Miami team attempted (8).
Rochester also committed just 13 turnovers while North Miami had 22.
“I felt like they were pressuring the ball, but they were unforced turnovers,” North Miami coach Nathan Curtis said. “We got kids wide open in the paint, and we’re just throwing it off their hands. I don’t say that’s good defense. That was more us making bad passes. That’s things that we’ve been working on cleaning up, and we’ll continue to get better. At the end of the year, we’ll cut these turnovers down from 20, and we’ll be in the low teens and hopefully under 10 by the end of the year.”
But even with the turnover issues, North Miami went on an 8-0 run in the third quarter to take their biggest lead at 29-24 when Rochester countered with their own run.
Wilson started by hitting two free throws at the 3:07 mark. She then drove to the basket for a layup. She tied the game with a free throw with 2:19 left.
After a Laina Kling miss, Wilson hit the go-ahead 3-pointer from the right of the key. Wilson had scored eight points in a span of 89 seconds to put Rochester ahead for good.
North Miami sophomore Kinley Deardorff was guarding Wilson during this period. This was a matchup that Rochester coach Joel Burrus wanted to exploit. And Burrus thought Wilson was also contributing defensively.
“We talked about we wanted to get one ball reversal to her,” Burrus said. “And then the help’s having to shift over, and she had that seam gap drive about four or five times in the third quarter to go along with a couple of the steals, and we got to throw it ahead to her a couple times. … That’s the best defense I’ve seen Wilson play, like getting out and getting herself going.”
Wilson dealt with both an ankle injury and left leg pain last year. She said she is feeling better this year.
“I think I’d say I’ve just been starting to get more aggressive and comfortable with the ball,” Wilson said. “The beginning of the season is always a little bit of a rough start for me getting back into my basketball shape, but I think I’ve done a good job in this offseason knowing how to get my body into shape and just knowing when to attack and be aggressive with the ball.”
After Rochester’s Ali Field forced a held ball by denying a North Miami back door pass, the run continued. With Kling now guarding her, Wilson attacked the hoop again. She missed a running 12-foot banker, but Lyla Bowers rebounded and kicked out to an open Hunter, who drained another 3-pointer.
The first points of the fourth quarter came on a driving layup from Gonzalez that capped a 35-second possession. Wilson split a pair of free throws with 6:04 left to cap the run and give the Lady Zs a nine-point lead.
Donaldson hit a 3-pointer and a runner in the lane on consecutive trips to cut the lead to 38-34, but Jadyn Field got an offensive rebound on a Wilson miss, and Donaldson committed her fifth foul on the way back up.
Another Jadyn Field offensive rebound led to another bucket to make it 41-34.
North Miami would close within 45-41 on a Hampton 3-pointer from the right corner off a Kling assist with 5.7 seconds left, but Wilson capped the win with two free throws at the 4.8 mark.
While Donaldson fouled out, Jadyn Field dealt with her own foul trouble, picking up her third in the first half and her fourth with 2:02 left in the third quarter. But she never fouled out.
Meanwhile, Wilson and Gonzalez extended their defense on top of Rochester’s 2-3 zone to where it eventually became a fullcourt press.
“Two years ago, I had the light bulb kick on,” Burrus said. “We were down (nine) here two years ago, and we went to the press, and we went on a 15-4 run, and that was with Ella (McCarter), R.J. (Rylee Clevenger) and them their senior year, and I thought we’ve got to get something going here, and we’ve got to speed this up, and we knew Donaldson was in foul trouble. That worked to our advantage. And their guards are pretty young, and we knew that they would probably start throwing it around some.
“First two games we watched, young guards, they’re going to throw it all over the place. I thought that got us going, and I’ll tell you what, that got Wilson going.”
Wilson finished with 19 points at North Miami’s gym in a 42-41 win two years ago.
“She did a good job getting downhill, and that’s one thing I didn’t want her to do,” Curtis said. “A lot of those were free throws. So you take her free throws away, I don’t feel like her stat line is all that great at that point, and we gave her a couple easy ones downhill. There was one in the first half. Porscha (Pickett) was out of breath tired, and she beat her down the floor. Nobody steps up on help-side defense. There are things we could have done a little bit better to help with the drive there, but she’s a competitor, and you’ve got to learn when you’re young, like Deardorff guarding her, you’ve got to learn to be a little tougher and be able to handle that kind of pressure and adversity.”
The first half featured six lead changes. North Miami closed out the first quarter with a 7-0 run to take a 9-7 lead. A Bowers 3 and two Wilson free throws gave Rochester a 22-18 lead before Deadorff hit a 3 to cut the margin to 22-21 at halftime.
North Miami’s momentum continued over the first four-and-a-half minutes of the second half.
Rochester also won the JV game 45-31.
Rochester 47, North Miami 41
ROCHESTER (47) (3-0)
Aubrey Wilson 4 10-14 20, Brailyn Hunter 2 2-2 7, Adalyn Gonzalez 1 2-4 4, Jadyn Field 4 2-3 10, Ali Field 0 3-4 3, Lyla Bowers 1 0-0 3, Hope Baugh 0 0-0 0, Kyleigh Little 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 12 19-27 47
NORTH MIAMI (41) (1-2)
Audi Medina 2 0-0 5, Laina Kling 0 0-0 0, Porscha Pickett 1 0-0 3, Layla Hampton 5 2-2 13, Kayden Donaldson 4 4-4 13, Kinley Deardorff 2 2-2 7, Sydney Lane 0 0-0 0, Kylie Durst 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 14 8-8 41
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 4 (Wilson 2, Hunter, Bowers),
North Miami 5 (Pickett, Medina, Deardorff, Hampton, Donaldson)
Total fouls: Rochester 14, North Miami 18
Fouled out: Donaldson (NM), 5:09, fourth
Turnovers: Rochester 13, North Miami 22
Score by quarters
Rochester 7 15 13 12 – 47
North Miami 9 12 8 12 – 41
JV: Rochester 45, North Miami 31
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