Civic Memorial parlays early 2nd half surge into victory against struggling Highland
On paper, the match-up between the Highland and Civic Memorial girls basketball teams looked like a classic mismatch.
For the first 16 minutes of play, that was anything but the case as HHS did not let the Eagles get their high-powered, uptempo offense going. Meanwhile, a pair of late second quarter Emma Warner buckets pulled the Lady Bulldogs within one point entering halftime.
Civic Memorial, however, opened the third quarter with a 9-0 run for a 24-14 lead and never looked back as the Eagles ultimately rolled to a 50-35 Mississippi Valley Conference victory Tuesday, Dec. 21, at Civic Memorial High School.
“I keep telling our girls we’re close and defensively (in the first half) we did a lot of things right,” Highland coach Clint Hamilton said. “Overall I was happy with our defense, but we just can’t seem to find offense and that’s where we’ve been struggling. I told everybody that we’ve got to find some way to get three kids in double figures (scoring).”
Both teams struggled in the first half to find a rhythm as the Lady Bulldogs were tentative with the ball on offense but strong on defense using an aggressive 2-2-1 press that rattled the Eagles into poor shot selection and turnovers.
Down 14-10 late in the second stanza, Warner provided the Lady Bulldogs a lift as she knocked down a pair of shots in the final two minutes to cut the Eagles lead to just 15-14 at the break.
Coming out of the intermission, Civic Memorial got rolling as junior forward Oliva Durbin drilled a pair of 3-pointers to key a 9-0 run, pushing the lead to 24-14.
That run put Highland in a tough spot it spent the rest of the night trying to get out of.
“That was the whole thing right there as Olivia Durbin got loose two times and she’s the best shooter on their whole team,” Hamilton said. “We had a mental lapse there and they made shots when they were open and we let them get away. Then, we’re playing from behind and we just don’t have the offensive firepower to come back like that.”
CM (13-0, 5-0) stretched the lead to 16 late in the third quarter and Highland never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
Wilke shines for Highland
Although the Lady Bulldogs did not prevail, Grace Wilke was a major bright spot as she posted a game-high 21 points.
“She had a great game,” Hamilton said of Wilke. “I’ve been trying to tell her every game she needs to take 15-20 shots to get in a rhythm but she did a nice job and took the ball to the rim and got to the foul line and made a couple of 3-point shots. Now, we’ve just got to get consistency out of her where she’s getting double figures every night.”
The loss dropped Highland to 4-12 overall and 1-4 in league play.
Kelbie Zuppan led Civic Memorial with 15 points, while Avari Combes added 10 points and Durbin had 8 points.
The Lady Bulldogs will break for Christmas and return to action at 7 p.m Monday, Dec. 27, with a first-round game in the Mascoutah Christmas Tournament against Okawville.
This story was originally published December 22, 2021 at 1:33 AM.