Girls Basketball: Desperate HHS wins key game at CM

Feeling desperate and faced with nearly a must-win scenario in a conference road game at Civic Memorial, the Highland High School girls basketball team rose to the occasion and scored a much-needed 52-46 victory over the host Eagles on Thursday night.

With the win, Highland has won four straight games to improve to 7-3 overall and, even more importantly, improved to 3-1 in the Mississippi Valley Conference to stay within a game of league-leader Triad (4-0 MVC, 7-1 overall). The task of reclaiming the MVC championship got a lot tougher for Civic Memorial (1-2, 5-5) which fell two full games behind the Knights.

The Lady Bulldogs are the two-time conference champions after sharing it with CM Eagles two years ago and then winning it outright last season.

The Eagles, who won the Valley three years in a row from 2012-14, have already dropped home games to both Triad and Highland this season.

The Lady Bulldogs jumped out to their largest lead of the game right out of the gate at 11-2 and only trailed twice the entire game — 12-11 after a 10-0 run from the Eagles late in the first quarter and at 35-33 with just over two minutes left in the third frame.

Highland built its second biggest lead at 21-13 on a 3-pointer from junior Abby Melosi about a minute and a half into the second quarter. The Lady Bulldogs went on to hold a seven-point advantage on several occasions, although CM always stayed within striking range throughout the contest.

“You always have to come ready to play from the start, especially against a team like CM,” said HHS senior guard Amanda Ponce, who who pumped in 16 of her game-high 23 points in the first quarter, highlighted by five of her 10 first-quarter points coming in the final 4.7 seconds of the opening stanza to stake her team to an 18-13 advantage. “We started off slow on the Monday night game (at Centralia Dec. 14) but we redeemed ourselves tonight. We played well as a team and found the open man in the stretch. It was a fun, energetic game and it had a playoff feel to it with the big crowd. This was a big win going into the (Mascoutah) Christmas tournament, we have a week of practice to prepare.”

The third quarter was very tight with Highland only leading by as many as three points early on before there were four ties and the stanza ended with the Lady Bulldogs slightly ahead at 37-35.

In the fourth quarter, Ponce banked in a shot and HHS senior Caitlin Lammers followed by knocking down her first of back-to-back mid-range baseline jumpers for her team that extended Highland’s lead from four to six points on both occasions, the the second making it 45-39.

“She hit some real big shots,” Highland coach Mike Arbuthnot said of Lammers, who finished with nine points. “I can’t say enough about our kids. They hung in there and played their hearts out.”

Highland went 7-for-10 at the foul line the rest of the way to hold CM at bay.

CM junior Allie Troeckler, an Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Class 3A All-State selection a year ago, scored 15 of her 22 points in the second half, including all 11 of her team’s fourth-quarter points, and finished by going 9-for-17 from the field and 4-for-5 at the charity stripe.

However, Troeckler’s teammates offered little support after totaling just five points on 2-for-9 shooting from the floor over the final two quarters.

“To me, it seems like Triad, and Highland again tonight, played with a lot more urgency than we did,” said CM coach Jonathan Denney, who is in his 10^th season at the helm. “They really got after it early. They came out, kind of set the tone, as did Triad the other night. I’m just disappointed with our energy and our overall effort. I think we play hard in spurts, but it’s not an all-the-time thing. And effort’s got to be an all-the-time thing for us to be successful.”

After Highland went on top 27-20 on a layup from Ponce, the Eagles responded and closed within 27-26 at halftime when Kaylee Eaton and Journey Coffman hit 3-pointers in the final minute of the second quarter. Eaton scored all of her 10 points in the first half and went 3-for-4 from behind the arc.

CM took its only lead of the second half at 35-33 on Kaitlyn Turbyfill’s layup on an inbounds play with 2:05 left in the third quarter.

But Denney said his team had “a lot of poor possessions” and made “bad decisions,.” which allowed Highland to take control of the game’s final 10 minutes.

After relinquishing the lead, the Lady Bulldogs immediately answered as junior Katie Kampwerth scored to tie it and Ponce made two foul shots to give her team the lead for good heading into the final frame.

For the game, Ponce made 7-of-10 field goals, including going 2-for-3 from 3-point range, and hit 7-of-8 free throws.

“In my mind, Ponce is an all-stater,” Arbuthnot said. “She’ll be up there this year. She is our floor leader. She plays with a lot of heart. Big ballgames, she always steps up. She’s the one that you want at the free throw line with 15 seconds to go. She’s the one that you want with the ball in her hands to win or lose the game.”

In addition to Ponce’s 23 points and Lammers’ nine markers, Highland got six points from junior Madison Wellen, five from Melosi, four from junior Hayley Taylor, three from junior Alex LaPorta and the two form Kampwerth.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 5:55 AM with the headline "Girls Basketball: Desperate HHS wins key game at CM."