Hawk girls’ first win comes against South O’Brien
Two teams in search of their first victory of the season met January 17 at Hartley. It was Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn that was able to crack the win column as the Hawks defeated South O’Brien 50-21.
“Going into the game, we were 0-10, and South O’Brien 0-12 so regardless, someone was going to get their first win,” noted HMS head coach Jenni Van Otterloo. “Before the game, we broke down some comparison stats and set a few goals for ourselves. We accomplished three of those four! Our first goal was to outrebound them, and we did just that, outrebounding them 40-24. Our next goal was to score 12 or more points per quarter, and we averaged that, so we count that as a win! The third goal was to have less than 18 turnovers, and we accomplished that with only 15. The fourth goal was to make more free throws than they attempted. Although we didn’t accomplish that one since we got in foul trouble early on and put them to the line often in the first half, we still came out on top.”
It took nearly four minutes for the Wolverines to score their first point of the game. In fact that accounted for all their scoring in a first quarter which ended with the Hawks in front 15-1. “A big piece of our success last night was in our defense,” observed Van Otterloo. “We shut them down early on and got in their heads mentally, and were able to keep them to only 21 points. They average 33 points a game, so that was a huge victory for us!”
Frankie Mohni came off the bench to lead HMS in scoring with 10 points. The starters all contributed with Kylee Schiphoff, Abby Douma and Moriah Otto each scoring seven points, Elise Haack adding six points and Emily Mutombo four. In addition Eliza Tewes tallied three points and there were two points apiece from Gracie Knobloch, Addison Sheeler and Lindsey Van Es. “We did a really nice job of working the ball around and finding the open girls to score, which was obvious since the score was well spread out throughout all the players!” said Van Otterloo. “Almost everyone who played last night put some points on the board, and that is really exciting!” The assist leaders were Mutombo with six and Schiphoff with four.
The Hawks’ 21-of-61 shooting from the field (34 percent) included going 2-for-16 from beyond the arc. HMS made six of its 14 free throws. South O’Brien put up 44 shots and made just six for 14 percent. The Wolverines were 1-of-10 from three-point range and 8-of-22 from the foul line.
Leading the charge on the boards were Otto with 12 rebounds, Schiphoff with eight, Mutombo with six and Douma with four. Douma also rejected five South O’Brien shots. Mutombo came away with three steals.
“Overall, I am a proud coach of how my girls came out to play and did it with class and humility,” stated Van Otterloo.
S. O’Brien 1 10 3 7 – 21
HMS 15 16 9 10 – 50