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Shadyside cruises past River

SHADYSIDE JUNIOR Baylee Wach drives baseline against River’s Emily Smith during the second quarter of Monday’s game in Shadyside. The Tigers scored a 69-41 victory. Wach scored 21 points in the game to lead everyone.

SHADYSIDE — Often times, getting back on the court or field quickly, is the best cure for a team’s ailments.

Such was the case for Shadyside on Monday evening.

Just 48 hours removed from falling at Martins Ferry and scoring a dismal 33 points, the Tigers took no prisoners against an overmatched River squad inside the Tiger Den en route to posting a convincing 69-41 victory.

“Hopefully this (performance) gets us the confidence we were looking for,” Shadyside coach Serge Gentile said. “It’s always nice to see the ball go through the hoop.”

Obviously.

Shadyside, which by its own admission lives and dies by the 3-point shot, has struggled at times shooting the ball. However, the Tigers knocked down 12 bonus goals against the Pilots.

“It always feels good when (the ball) is going in,” Gentile said. “We’ve gotten pretty good looks, pretty much all year, but there are going to be stretches when you don’t shoot it that well. Shooting is contagious. We had the bug, in the bad way, the last week or so, but hopefully this gets us out of that funk.”

The Tigers (13-5) wasted no time in asserting themselves against a River squad, which has dropped seven in a row and is 4-13 on the season.

“When you’re a young team, we’re trying to play different defenses and we did a decent job when we played them the first time, but they came out and had different people knock down open shots,” River coach Rick Isaly said. “It’s been a long season, but I challenged the girls at halftime and told them to come out and give a better effort than we did in the first half, and I felt we did that. We just can’t afford to get down (in a game) because we don’t have enough scoring to come back.”

Isaly employed a “junk” defense against Shadyside’s junior catalysts — Baylee Wach and Tory Hendershot — during the game at Hannibal and used a similar approach in the second meeting.

However, senior Brooke Selmon, senior Julie Hendershot and senior Madisyn Stewart all knocked down at least one 3-pointer in the opening eight minutes to set the tone.

All told, Shadyside held a 24-7 lead after one and upped it to 37-15 at half. The Tigers then stretched the margin to 57-22 after three and Gentile opted to sit his starting unit for the entire fourth.

Wach, who was honored before the game for scoring her 1,000th career point on Saturday, finished with a game-high 21 points. Selmon was red hot, knocking down four bonus goals and finishing with 16. Tory Hendershot added 10 and yet another impressive floor game.

River was led by senior Alli Long, who went for 16, including all 13 of the Pilots’ first-half points.

Both teams are in action on Thursday. River hosts Linsly, while Shadyside welcomes Bridgeport.

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