By JUSTIN BURKHARDT
TopSports.news
It had been 12 days in between Games 1 and 2 for the Highland Park Lady Scots, who lost their season-opener to Topeka West.
Rob Brown's Highland Park girls picked up their first win of the season Tuesday night at home, rallying for a 42-40 non-league win over Shawnee Mission West. [File photo/TSN]
But the Scots made the long layoff pay off with a 42-40 home non-league victory over Class 6A school Shawnee Mission West.
The game would be a tale of two halves for the Scots, who saw themselves trailing the Vikings 10-7 at the end of the first quarter and 22-12 at halftime.
But defense wins games and defense it was as the Lady Scots would come out hot and hold the Vikings to 18 total points after halftime while scoring 30 points themselves.
“At halftime, I stressed that it is going to be our defense,'' Highland Park coach Rob Brown said. "We had to make some adjustments. I stressed to them tonight that this game was going to be the first to 40 wins and I was right.
"I keep telling the girls that our defense is going to be key for us. Offense is going to take care of itself, but we have to play defense without fouling.”
The Scots got huge shots when it mattered out of senior Koralee Jones who was cold for the night and had missed her last eight shots before hitting the biggest shots of the night.
With under two minutes to go in the game Jones would hit the net to tie the game at 38 and then with a minute to go in the game Jones would come up big again for her team as she would find the basket again this time to put her team up 40-38.
“It just says a lot about her confidence that it is growing, people don’t know, this is her third year playing basketball,'' Brown said. "So her confidence has grown with every practice and every game. The girls trust her and she trusts her teammates.”
“Just reflecting off the team’s energy, we played aggressive defense and kept grinding on offense, we didn’t let ourselves get flustered and kept attacking, and my shot finally fell when it mattered,” Jones said.
Shawnee Mission West would take a timeout with 18 seconds left and hit a shot to tie the game at 40.
But the Scots would get the ball down the court and it would find it’s way into the hands of sophomore Tavvi Williams-Sanders, who scored the game-winning basket.
“She is always in the right spot and she has that little soft touch to go back up with it,” Brown said.
“It means a lot to me because I wasn’t doing so good, and at the beginning of the game I got mad, but my teammates kept motivating me and I was at the right place at the right time to hit the shot,” Williams-Sanders said.
The Lady Scots have two huge games this week before Christmas break as they will go to The Dungeon on Thursday night to battle the Topeka High Lady Trojans in huge city rivalry game. And then Highland Park will host Kansas City-Wyandotte in a Meadowlawk Conference game on Friday.
“We’ve been talking about it, this is going to be a big week for us,''' Brown said. "Topeka High is going to be a tough one. It is our in town rival, they have some tough players, but any time you play that game it can get a bit weird. Wyandotte had became a rival for us in league, they always give us some fits and we battle with them back and fourth, so I am looking forward to the challenge.”
HIGHLAND PARK 42, SHAWNEE MISSION WEST 40
Shawnee Mission West 10 12 9 9 -- 40
Highland Park 7 5 13 17 -- 42
SM West (1-3) -- Armour 3-8 1-4 8, Carter 2-10 3-6 7, Andre 2-11 0-0 6, Garcia 1-8 3-4 5, Collins 2-3 1-2 5, McLaughlin 2-3 0-0 4, Auer 1-6 1-2 3, Goodwin 0-1 2-2 2, Totals 13-50 11-20 40.
Highland Park (1-1) -- Cosey 4-9 2-4 13, Jones 4-16 2-6 10, Grace 2-8 2-5 7, Barnett 3-3 0-0 6, Williams-Sanders 1-3 1-2 3, Cameron 0-1 2-2 2, Kincaid 0-3 1-2 1, Hooper 0-2 0-0 0, Inyard 0-4 0-0, Atkins 0-1 0-2, Totals 14-50 10-23 42.
3-point goals -- SM West 3 (Andre 2, Armour), Highland Park 4 (Cosey 3, Grace). Fouled out -- Garcia, Grace. Technical fouls -- SM West bench, Garcia.
