By ISAAC DEER
TopSports.news
Silver Lake's girls basketball team continued its undefeated start Tuesday night, taking a 60-35 home victory over rival Rossville.
Silver Lake, now 5-0, has outscored the opposition 279-191 in the young season.
Rossville was unable to get a lead over Silver Lake at any point during the four quarters.
Silver Lake started out quick with an 8-2 run shortly after tipoff. Rossville called a quick timeout, but Silver Lake took that opportunity to run with it.
In the first quarter, Silver Lake’s McKinley Kruger and Makenzie McDaniel took the court by storm.
M. Kruger’s ability to swipe the ball and find open teammates was smooth early. Standing at 6-foot-1 McDaniel was able to allow herself to get open opportunities in the paint. M. Kruger & McDaniel had over 53 percent of the Eagles' points in the first quarter.
“Our concern coming into tonight’s game was to limit Rossville in transition,'' Silver Lake coach Kyle Porter said. "We wanted to play more of a half-court game and play through the paint. Early on we played their (Rossville) game. We gave them too many opportunities that benefitted them at times and we needed to get that fixed.''
In the second quarter, the Lady Eagles ran away with the game, outscoring the Bulldawgs 21-9. The 3-point shots fell in at a much bigger clip. Kruger, Mariah Farmer and Ella Bolan added four 3-point shots.
“In transition there are times where you are going to get wide open 3s and if you shoot them you have to knock them down,'' Porter said. "We like to play a touch-paint first-style before we take a 3-point shot, but we were confident that our girls had the ability to make those shots in the second (quarter) especially, Mariah Farmer who had a number of them tonight.''
Going into halftime, the Lady Eagles held an eye-opening 38-19 lead over a tough Rossville team.
The Lady Eagles did not get cursed by the halftime cold spell going into the third quarter.
Silver Lake was in charge of a 20-4 run. Crisp shooting play and solid post play from the three-headed monster of M. Kruger, McDaniel, and Farmer made it difficult for Rossville to keep up.
The Silver Lake coaching staff does not want the Lady Eagles to get over-confident heading into Friday night’s matchup with Rock Creek, also 5-0.
“We take every game and learn from it. We are going to come back tomorrow ready to improve. Rock Creek is a team that is very heavy in post play. They’re going to be a tough matchup for us. We have to get better at a lot of little things, like getting better in the paint, guard on the ball better, we have to rotate better, we have to block out better, and that all starts tomorrow,” said Porter.
SILVER LAKE GIRLS 60, ROSSVILLE 35
Silver Lake 17 21 20 2 – 60
Rossville 10 9 4 12 – 35
Rossville (4-2) – Mitchell 4 2-4 14, Perine 1 5-7 7, Douglas 1 2-3 5, Haehn 2 0-0 5, Gillum 1 0-0 2, Kel. Foster 0 2-2 2.
Silver Lake (5-0) – M. Kruger 5 3-4 15, McDaniel 6 2-4 13, Farmer 5 0-0 12, Ross 4 0-0 8, Bolan 2 0-0 5, Deiter 2 0-0 4, K. Kruger 1 0-0 3.
