DELPHOS – One of the things Minster did best in its 55-29 win over Delphos St. John’s in girls basketball Thursday night was apply defensive pressure.
And nowhere was that more evident than when St. John’s got off only one shot and turned the ball over seven times in the first five minutes, 13 seconds of the second quarter, helping the Wildcats build a 27-11 halftime lead.
“That was real big. They picked up the pressure and we weren’t very good at handling pressure,” St. John’s coach Dan Grothouse said.
“All we wanted to do was put the ball on floor and dribble, but with no purpose. That got us out of what we wanted to do offensively and it turned right into turnovers. That stretch really hurt us. When they pressured us, it took us completely out of our offense and we didn’t adjust very well,” he said.
St. John’s (7-5, 2-2 Midwest Athletic Conference) cut the lead to 11 points early in the third quarter, but that was as close at it could get.
Minster (11-2, 5-0 MAC) had a lot more going its way than just defensive pressure.
“It was a little bit of everything,” Minster coach Nann Stechschulte said. “We talked about defensive intensity and I thought we came out with that. We were getting the ball inside offensively and that built us a halftime lead, but we got away from that in the third quarter.
“All I really care about is they play hard. That’s all I ask them to do and I felt like we did that. It’s not like we played great offensively but our defensive intensity was there. And I thought we controlled the boards,” she said.
Rosie Westerbeck and Courtney Prenger each scored 12 points to lead the Wildcats and Prenger had seven rebounds. Madilyn Schulte’s eight points led St. John’s.
Minster shot 45 percent on field goals (19 of 42) and St. John’s connected on 31 percent of its shots (11 of 35). The Wildcats had a 24-14 rebounding edge. St. John’s had 20 turnovers and Minster had 12.
Minster played four games in six days, starting last Saturday and won all of them. The Wildcats beat Celina 47-33 on Saturday, won 42-27 over Jackson Center on Monday and beat previously undefeated Anna 44-37 on Tuesday.
“To have the energy we still had, I was very proud of them,” Stechschulte said.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
