Highland basketball girls overcome slow start, roll past Mascoutah
Despite a cold-shooting first quarter and Larissa Taylor getting into early foul trouble, the Highland girls basketball team found its mojo Friday night.
The Bulldogs got timely second quarter scoring from Lauren Maas and Sophie Schroeder before Taylor keyed a 12-point third quarter surge with eight points as Highland rolled to a 49-23 victory at home over Mississippi Valley Conference foe Mascoutah.
It was a nice bounce back win for Highland, which dropped a 42-36 road contest to Edwardsville on Tuesday.
“I thought we got a lot of great looks in the first and we didn’t make anything and sometimes, it’s like that,” Highland coach Clint Hamilton said. “I tough our defense really showed up tonight only giving up 23 points, so we found a way to be super competitive even though we didn’t have our best offense.”
Taylor was forced to the bench early in the second quarter with her second foul of the night but thanks to buckets from Maas and Schroeder, Bulldogs broke loose for 14 second quarter points and took a 23-9 lead into the halftime break.
Taylor, the Bulldogs senior standout forward returned in the third quarter and keyed a 12-0 run with eight points, pushing the lead to 33-12 with 2:50 left in tbe third quarter.
The scoring surge was a nice boost for Taylor, who had struggled in the first five games but finished the evening with a game-high 19 points.
“I was just trying to keep my hands up in the air and trying to stay clean and play clean with my hands,” Taylor said. “That (run) was awesome and it’s like our defense became our offense and I think this game like the Waterloo we kind of found a game where we could score and play defense.”
Highland (3-5, 2-0 in MVC play) continued to pull away in the fourth quarter as Mascoutah (3-4, 0-2) never got closer 23 points the rest of the way.
Hamilton was pleased with the Bulldogs transition defense as HHS got into the passing lanes and got several easy run out layups in the second half.
“That’s he for us, especially when we’re not making perimeter shots around the bucket we can get some easy ones and get our confidence up so I thought it was really nice, especially Abby Schultz had a couple of nice ones getting a defensive rebounds and scoring on the other end.”
Schroeader added 9 points for Highland, Maas had 7 and Schultz finished with 5.
Riley Fazenbaker led Mascoutah with 8 points.
This story was originally published December 2, 2023 at 9:30 AM.