Recap of opening night

The Patriots, both the girls team, now in their third year, and the boys, brand new this year, opened up last Monday night at Heritage Christian High in Dyer, Indiana. From what we knew about Heritage, we feared these games would be "baptism by fire", as we knew that Heritage's boys had taken second in last year's ICSTS tournament, and the girls had won the tournament. We also knew that our girls had gained in experience and confidence in the three years they had been playing together, and we were curious to see how they now measured up against some top competition.

At 5:30 the girls started (exactly at 5:30, as I walked in as the opening tip was tossed). As we later found out, Heritage has essentially one girls' team, so it really wasn't a JV team we took on. However, they did limit their upperclassmen's playing time in response to our request for a JV game. So what this all meant was that Danielle Zandstra was going to be going up against us. Yes, the 6'1" or 6'2" Danielle Zandstra. But after the game got going, we found out that our girls weren't intimidated. She often started at the high post, so Becca or Alyssa would pick her up there and slow her down as tried to drop down into the low post. This didn't mean the girls stopped her. She still got her points, just not as many as we thought she might. Anyway, because of some outside shooting by Alyssa and Kara, and some down-low work by Becca, the girls only trailed 13-9 at the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter was more of a defensive quarter, as Danielle was on the bench and Heritage worked the ball around the perimeter more, waiting for an open shot. Our girls only got four in the quarter, on a basket and two free throws. Heritage got six, so the score at the half was Heritage, 19-13.

The girls struggled in the third quarter. Heritage started defending the one play the girls had practiced, so there were a lot of turnovers as the girls hadn't had a chance to practice any other plays. Danielle was back in, and she played well. The scoring in the third quarter was 10-3 in favor of Heritage, and the cumulative score was 29-16.

Because of the troubles the girls were having in getting the play to work, Coach Boss called what was essentially a clear-out play, with the four other girls clearing out of the lane to let Kara try to beat the one defender on her (because of the play the girls had run earlier, Heritage was playing what amounted to a 1-2-2 defense, with only one girl on the top of the defense). He also changed the defense to a three-quarter court man-to-man press. Both of these paid off somewhat, but the deficit was too large to make up. The Patriots "won" the fourth quarter, 13-11, but lost the game, 40-29. Overall assessment: the girls looked pretty good, especially having only a few practices.

Key stats were: Kara led in scoring with 16, while Becca had 6, Alyssa had a three, and Lee and Carolyn each had a basket. This was Carolyn's first career basket. Way to go, Carolyn! Becca had five rebounds and three blocks and Kara had three assists and six steals. On the negative side, four girls had four or more turnovers.

The guys then took on what was the Heritage JV boys team. The boys also had very little time to install plays, and a couple of key players were not able to make one or both of the practices in which these plays were practiced. The lack of practice was very obvious early on, as the game started badly for the Patriots. Ball-handling was a problem for the guys, which led to a lot of turnovers. Because lack of practice, the guys were trying to remember what they were to do instead of doing them instinctively. All of this resulted in a 15-3 first quarter deficit and 22-5 at halftime.

Justin VanderPloeg was put in the in the third quarter and seemed to provide a spark. The guys played a little better defense and were only outscored 6-3 in the quarter, but that still meant they were down 29-8 at the end of that quarter.

Heritage seemed to get more comfortable with their game by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, and they started attacking the basket. Our guys were on their heels, the ball-handling was only marginally better, and we had trouble shooting. Heritage outscored HSRC 17-4 in the quarter, and the final was 46-12.

Justin VanderPloeg led in scoring with four on two field goals, while Jimi Dill and Dustin Vail had three each, Jimi on a three, and Dustin with a two and a free throw. Luke Lorenz rounded out the scoring with a basket he got a on nice offensive rebound and put-back. Justin had eight rebounds and Luke L. had seven. Those two also each had an assist, while Luke L. had two steals. Jimi had two blocks.

Next games are the guys at Hinsdale Adventist Academy Monday at 4:30, and the girls against Calumet at Lincoln Center in Highland Friday. Schedules and game locations are at the bottom of the page.