UL girls start fast, end strong in win
Jets now 9-1 after 75-20 rout of Devils
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MORRISTOWN -- With an undersized St. Clairsville squad coming to town Thursday night, Union Local Head Coach Rob Barr was hoping for his talented inside players to show some physicality and dominate while getting ready for a big matchup with Waynedale on Saturday morning.
Unfortunately for Coach Stacey Agnew and his Lady Red Devils, Barr got exactly what he was looking for as 6-ft. sophomores Reagan Vinskovich and Torre Kildow were nearly unstoppable under the basket and his Lady Jets outrebounded their guests by a 50-14 margin while dropping in 26 second-chance points.
Vinskovich finished with 23 points and 17 rebounds while Torre Kildow added 21 markers and 11 caroms and Union Local raced out to a 13-0 advantage and was never threatened in rolling to a convincing, 75-20, victory over St. Clairsville at the 'Hangar.'
The victory improves Barr's squad, which has not loss since a season-opening setback to Fort Frye, to 9-1 on the campaign. Saturday's showdown with Waynedale, which entered last night at 9-1, will take place at the Classic in the Country Challenge at Hiland High School in Berlin.
"I wanted them to show a little more physicality inside (Thursday) with Saturday's game against a scrappy Waynedale team, which comes at you with a style of a little bit of football and a little bit of basketball," Barr said with a smile.
Vinskovich made her presence known from the start, scoring eight of her team's initial 13 points and finishing the first quarter with 10 points and eight rebounds. After Macy Malin's basket ended the Jets' 13-0 run at 3:23 the hosts used a 10-3 burst to put the finishing touches on a 23-5 first quarter lead.
In all Union Local converted 10 field goals in the first eight minutes of play, two more than the Red Devils had the entire game.
A 9-2 run to open the second put the hosts up 25 with 2:08 to play in the half which eventually equated into a 35-11 halftime bulge.
Torre Kildow scored eight markers in the third, with senior sister Casey dropping in a pair of three-point bombs as a 20-3 run pushed the lead to 55-14. Barr played his bench for most of the final chapter and the Jets were still able to put together another run, this time 10-0, midway through the fourth.
"I felt like we played very well on defense and really got after it out there," Barr added. "These girls always play the final two minutes of the game, even in a blowout, like it's the first two minutes of the game and that is a tribute to them. It's nice to have two 6-ft. players inside, and it's unfortunate, but I know Stacey's (Agnew) team is a little vertically challenged this year.
"We have six girls that have been playing together since the second grade and to be able to do that and grow is amazing. Especially when you have girls as athletic as Casey (Kildow) and Hannah (Merritt). This kind of team doesn't come along very often, and you really hope you get to take advantage of the situation. Our goal is obviously to make a long tournament run this year."
Casey Kildow chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds for the winners, who turned the ball over just eight times, 10 fewer than their guests. Alexis Thoburn paced St. Clairsville with six points.
"Union Local is a very good basketball team and they played tough (Thursday), there just wasn't anything we could do," Agnew admitted. "We have no size, and they are so much more physical than us. I tried to stress to the girls in practice that a lot of their offense comes on second chance shots, and we worked on it all week, but it didn't show up on the court.
"We will just have to keep working."