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Sharpshooter scores 27, helps Lady Comets to first win at Pioneer in 8 years
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
ROYAL CENTER — Addison Zimpleman might have had a scratchy voice due to an illness, but the Caston girls basketball team’s senior let her shooting do the talking for her against host Pioneer Tuesday.
Zimpleman hit five 3-pointers and scored 27 points, and Isabel Scales added 13 as Caston cruised to a 55-25 win that maintained their undefeated record.
The win sets up Caston (11-0, 4-0 Hoosier North) for a showdown at Knox Friday. Knox (4-7, 3-0) is the only other unbeaten team in the Hoosier North, and they are the last team to hand Caston a conference loss back on Dec.
16, 2021.
Macee Hinderlider also scored eight points, all in the first half.
Mia McKaig scored nine points, and Makenna Strycker added eight for Pioneer, who dropped to 3-6, 0-3.
Thanks to Zimpleman, Caston hit seven 3-pointers while Pioneer hit one.
“I know my role on the team, and it’s just to score,” Zimpleman said. “I don’t go out just thinking I need to get this many points each night.”
Also, Caston had just six turnovers while Pioneer had 23. Caston also had 18 assists on 21 field goals.
Counting their 57-27 win at the Berry Bowl at Logansport in the Dec. 2 Cass County Invitational title game, Caston has now beaten Pioneer four straight times, all by double figure margins. However, this marked the first time Caston has beaten Pioneer in Royal
Center since the Joel Burrus-coached
Lady Comets did it on Dec. 16, 2015.
Caston, who moved up from No. 4 to No. 2 in this week’s Class 1A coaches poll, is one of eight remaining undefeated teams in the state. The Lady Comets are allowing 26.7 points per game, which ranks second in the state behind Indianapolis Herron.
This marked the sixth consecutive game in which their opponent failed to reach 30 points. Still, Caston coach Josh Douglass said he did not like his team’s zone defense, so he switched to a man-to-man in the first half.
“I thought in our zone, we were standing around and really slow and didn’t box out at all,” Douglass said. “So that’s why I went to man, to put more pressure up top on the ball because I wasn’t happy with the way we were moving. It was one of those nights I made them grind one out and play man the rest of the night after that. … We weren’t very locked in at the defensive end in my opinion tonight.”
Scales had three buckets in the post and a 3-pointer as part of Caston’s 17-2 first quarter run that helped take the lead for good.
Zimpleman hit two 3-pointers and then had a steal and a feed to Hinderlider on the fastbreak to open the second quarter before another Zimpleman steal and layup made it 27-8 and necessitated a Pioneer timeout.
“She’s battling something,” Douglass said of Zimpleman’s illness. “She went to the doctor today and got some medicine because she’s not been feeling well at all. She really gutted out one tonight and played really well. … Sometimes when you don’t feel well, you really focus in, and you forget what’s going on and you just play basketball.”
Pioneer coach Adam Berry said his team’s defensive strategy was to pinch the lane and make things difficult on Scales, the two-time reigning Cass County Invitational MVP. That, however, led to open looks for Zimpleman, who hit two more treys in the third quarter as Caston started on a 12-3 run.
“Defensively, we said we were going to try to take away the middle,” Berry said. “We’re going to try to take away Scales from catching the ball in the middle. For the most part, I thought we contained her as well as possible with that caliber of player, but Zimpleman just went off.”
Zimpleman said that Pioneer did a good job of shutting Scales down at times.
“But there’s a lot of people on the team that can score and pick up the slack when others aren’t able to,” she added.
Berry said that his team continues to show improvement. He said the team had not seen a man-to-man defense since the Clinton Central game four weeks ago.
“If you watched the game, offensively, we had a ton of great looks, especially at the rim that just didn’t go in,” Berry said. “But it’s one of those where in practice, they’re starting to go in more as we’re scrimmaging and as we’re doing specific drills. It’s just one of those confidence things. … Our outside shooters, if they just see a couple fall early, I think it’s going to be a turning point and open things up for us.”
Caston also won the JV game 21-15.
Caston 55, Pioneer 25
CASTON (55) (11-0, 4-0)
Macee Hinderlider 4 0-1 8, Addison Zimpleman 10 2-3 27, Madi Douglass 0 2-2 2, Isabel Scales 5 2-2 13, Alexa Finke 0 0-0 0, Olivia Thomas 1 0-0 2, Kaitlyn Hutsell 0 0-0 0, Annie Harsh 1 0-0 3
TEAM: 21 6-8 55
PIONEER (25) (3-6, 0-3)
Makenna Strycker 2 4-5 8, Mia McKaig 3 2-3 9, Lois Layer 1 2-4 4, Kynzie Hathaway 0 0-0 0, Gracie Hopper 2 0-0 4, Casey Webb 0 0-0 0, Julia McGrew 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 8 8-12 25
Three-point field goals:
Caston 7 (Zimpleman 5, Scales, Harsh),
Pioneer 1 (McKaig)
Total fouls: Caston 15, Pioneer 10
Turnovers: Caston 6, Pioneer 23
Score by quarters
Caston 17 16 12 10 – 55
Pioneer 8 6 6 5 – 25
JV: Caston 21, Pioneer 15
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