The last time the Hillsboro Lady Indians went up againt their rival the McClain Lady Tigers, it was on the home court of the McClain girls and the final score went in the favor of McClain in a big way 62-33. On Saturday night, the two teams went at it again, this time in Hillsboro and even though the Lady Indians found themselves down on the scoreboard at the final buzzer, they had given the Lady Tigers a scare with a final score of 52-48.
Madison Snyder was the work hourse of the night for the Lady Indians and after the first quarter, had scored all 12 points on the board for Hillsboro, while the Lady Indians as a whole had held their opponent to just 13 points.
Over the next two quarters, the Lady Tigers got their offensive rolling, however, and score 28 points to Hillsboro’s 16 to lead 41-28 after the third quarter.
The fourth and final quarter belonged to the Hillsboro squad. Led by Kristin Jamieson and Madison Snyder who combined for 16 points of the 20 scored in the quarter, the Lady Indians roared back within striking distance of their opponents. Unfortunately, time was against Hillsboro in the end, and the Lady Indians could not foul enough to keep time from running out and the Lady Tigers held on to win in the end with a final of 52-48.
“We didn’t really have a defensive answer for Madison Snyder there in the first quarter,” said McClain head coach Jared Haines after the game. “Credit to [Madison], she took some really good good shots. In some instances we were guarding her, but a lot of our problems were boxing out and rebounding, especially in the first half. Luckily, the answer we had for her was Taylor [Polley]. Taylor probably had one of the best performances of her career tonight. She shot the ball extremely well, especially from three, and she’s been working on that.
“The kids have been working extremely hard on shooting the basketball, so I don’t know if their legs were a little dead, but credit Hillsboro. Their guards killed us in the fourth quarter. They were getting to the basket and we didn’t really have an answer for them. I guess we were just hoping that time would expire.
“Defensively, we struggled guarding the basketball in the fourth. We gave a lot of wide open lanes to the basket. We’ll work on that. It’s kind of nice to be in this situation at this point in the season and coming out with a win so you know what you need to work on for two more big games coming up this week and going into tournament, and to let the girls know that you can lose on any night. Especially in this game. It’s a rivalry game. They’re going to come at you with everything they have, and they did. JR did an excellent job with them tonight. They played extremely hard til the buzzer sounded. I’m just glad we escaped tonight.”
“I’m really please with our defensive effort tonight,” said Lady Indians coach JR Moberly after the game. “The girls played hard. They got after it and they fought. We made some good rotations and did a lot of other really nice things.
“Madison [Snyder] is such a warrior. Night in and night out she’s seeing double down and double teams. Her game has evolved so much over the last few years. She recognizes that that’s going to to be the case a lot of times and she’s spent a lot of time facing the basket and putting the basketball on the floor. She’s done everything she can to give us an opportunity to win.
“We’ve been playing better basketball as of late. We haven’t always been able to put four quarters together. Hopefully we’re moving in the right direction and have something to build on for next year.”
Box:
MHS – 13 14 14 11 – 52
HHS – 12 7 9 20 – 48
McClain: Polley 2(7) 6/10 – 31; Malea Montavon 2(1) 2/2 – 9; Montgomery 3 1/2 – 7; Barton 1 1/2 – 3; Coleman 2/2 – 2. Totals: 8(8) 12/18 – 52.
Hillsboro: Snyder 10 3/5 – 23; Jalieson 4 3/4 – 11; Marsh 2(1) – 7; Sullivan 1(3) – 5; Chaney 1 – 2. Totals: 18(2) 6/9 – 48.
Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.
