Highland girls rally to win over rival Triad in high school basketball
Abby Schultz provided the early energy for the Highland girls basketball team on Friday night. Jordan Bircher and Larissa Taylor carried that intensity through the second half and the Bulldogs parlayed those big efforts into a satisfying 64-39 Mississippi Valley Conference victory over archrival Triad at Highland High School.
Highland (6-6, 4-0 in MVC play) kept its conference record perfect and keeps pace with conference leader Civic Memorial with the win.
“We’re in a good spot and were not where we want to be but obviously CM’s very good this year,” Highland coach Clint Hamilton said. “I feel like we played a really challenging schedule at the beginning of the year so maybe our record doesn’t show how good we can be, but I think that’s only going to help us going forward.”
What was a big help for HHS at the outset was the strong inside play of Schultz.
A 10-2 run to start the game keyed by a pair of Schultz inside buckets as Highland closed the first quarter with a 17-5 lead.
Schultz continued to run the floor and score inside in the second quarter as HHS settled in defensively and rolled to a 34-16 halftime lead. Schultz scored 12 points in the first half and finished the night with 18 points.
“I’ve been working hard to pick my offense up,” Schults said. Last season it wasn’t how I wanted it to be, and it really boost my confidence by trying to baskets early and keep going, Schultz said. I was just trying to run to tbe rim in transition and really post up for my teammate\s to get me the ball because they work so hard in transition.”
Bircher extended the lead for HHS to 41-21 with a three-ball from downtown with 5:28 left in tbe third quarter. The Bulldogs sophomore point guard also turned in a big night with 18 points, scoring from long range and mid-range.
Taylor, who was held in check by Triad in the first half kick-started a 6-0 run with three straight baskets, pushing HHS to a commanding 53-31 lead. Taylor fished with 12 points giving HHS three double figure scorers on the night.
Hamilton was pleased with the big nights from his top three players. “Anytime we can get three kids in double figures it’s big and typically defensively, we give ourselves a chance every night,” Hamilton said.
The night was anything but enjoyable for Triad, which dropped to 7-4 (2-2) with the loss.
“To Highland’s credit, they played really well and shot the ball well probably better than they have all year,” Triad coach Josh Hunt said. Now that their number 3 (Bircher) is back they are a different team, she’s kind of their catalyst and then 5 (Schultz) did a great job and 24 (Taylor) is a load inside and they did a great job and took advantage of our zone. We’re a fairly young team still and were learning how to play with that edge from the opening tip.”
MaKenna Witham was a major bright spot for the Knights. Witham scored a game high 21 points on 6 of 14 shooting from the floor. “Makenna’s a really nice player and she did s really nice job,” Hunt said.
Erica Boyce added 6 points for Triad.
Next up for the Bulldogs is an MVC showdown with Civic Memorial that could be for the conference lead.
Schultz expects it to be an exciting big-time matchup between the two clubs.
“Most of us expected it would be between us and CM and not like we’re overlooking any other team in the conference but just like how it was last year we knew it would probably be us and they’re a great team,” Schultz said. Hopefully we can just keep going strong and push through them.”