Edwardsville rebounds with easy win over Lancers

The Belleville East Lancers were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time on Tuesday at Edwardsville High School.

Junior Makenzie Silvey and sophomore Kate Martin scored eight points each in the first quarter to ignite the offense and the Tigers defense held Belleville East to nine field goals in the first three quarters as Edwardsville went on for an easy 54-33 win.

After having its remarkable 89-game SWC winning streak snapped at Collinsville last week, the Tigers took no chance on Tuesday. With Martin connecting from several different spots on the court and Silvey ringing up a pair of 3-point baskets, Edwardsville (5-1, 1-1) jumped out to a 17-2 lead in the first six minutes of the game.

East (5-3, 1-1) never got closer than 12 points the rest of the night as Edwardsville dominated in every phase of the game. The loss snapped the Lancers four-game winning streak.

The win was also the 599th of Edwardsville coach Lori Blade’s basketball coaching career. The highly successful Tigers coach will try for win No. 600 on Thursday when the Tigers visit Belleville West.

As for win No. 599, Blade said she also witnessed two things she wanted to see — a better overall focus from her team and much better defensive effort than she saw in a 70-68 loss at Collinsville.

“I was also wanting to see how we would react after the loss. We reacted like I hoped we would and like we always do,” Blade said. “I wanted to see a better overall focus from the kids, especially on defense. We weren’t pleased giving up 70 points. I also thought did a good job on the boards.”

KEY SEQUENCE

Trailing 4-2 after a basket by Ellisha Davis, the Lancers went more then four minutes without a point as Edwardsville went on a 13-0 scoring run.

Martin scored on a pair of short jumpers, Waters and Rachel Pranger both scored on strong inside moves and Silvey launched a 3-point to key the Tigers run which ended on a basket by Kaylah Rainey and Edwardsville holding a 17-4 lead.

“We got to out to quick lead and we even missed some shots around the basket,” Blade said. “It was just a very good team effort tonight. I thought we played very good defense. I think we held No.5 (Myriah Haywood) to six points and two of those came when she hit a tough shot.”

While Blade was happpy with nearly every phase of the game Edwardsville played, East coach Amanda Kemezys said she knew the Tigers would come out and play play well from the start. Unfortunately, the Lancers couldn’t match Edwardsville’s intensity.

“I know coach (Blade) wasn’t really worried about the winning streak that much,” Kemezys said. “But normally when a good program like Edwardsville loses a game they come out the next time and play well. We didn’t do that tonight. Emotionally, physically and mentally we just were never in this game tonight. Give credit to Edwardsville.”

KEY PERFORMERS

Martin led Edwardsville with 19 points — 12 coming in the first half. Pranger added 14 and Waters added 11. East was led by Rainey (7 points) and Haywood with six.

This story was originally published December 8, 2015 at 10:41 PM with the headline "Edwardsville rebounds with easy win over Lancers."