JM Girls Pocket First Victory
Strong start propels Monarchs to win over Brooke
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WELLSBURG -- 'It's not how you start, it's how you finish' is how the old saying goes, but how you start is still pretty important, as the John Marshall girls' basketball team found out Monday night at Brooke.
The Monarchs (1-3) scored the first 13 points of the game and led 19-2 after the first quarter but were out-scored by the Bruins the rest of the way and did just enough to hang on and win 49-42 for their first victory of the season.
"Much needed, it's just what the doctor ordered," said JM coach Brock Melko. "We just needed a win. It wasn't pretty, but at this point we don't care about pretty or ugly, we just needed a win to feel good about ourselves."
Melko said his team eased up after their strong first quarter and quickly learned that they could not coast to a victory.
"We had a chance to make it a kind of an easy win ... for whatever reason, when we got up 19-2, we just lost all of our intensity," Melko said. "I think we learned in the second half that it's tough when you take your foot off the gas to get it back. Hopefully we can use that as a lesson even in a win."
The Monarchs executed their offense to perfection in the first quarter, sinking eight shots, led by seven points from freshman post Kaitlyn Blake.
"We've been working a lot in practice on playing to our strengths," Melko said. "We don't really have an identity yet offensively but I think it can be our scoring at the basket. We know we're not the best 3-point shooting team so we're trying to take smart shots from the outside and really force it inside. "
On the other end, Brooke (1-4) was not playing poorly, but the Bruins just could not get their shots to fall.
"It was just missed shots," said coach Amy Serevicz. "My stats girl had us at 50-some missed shots in the first half, you can't miss that many shots. The first quarter killed us in this game."
Despite trailing by as many as 19 points early in the second quarter, the Bruins did not crumple and their tenacity was eventually rewarded.
Brooke out-scored JM 16-12 in the second quarter, led by seven points from center Ava Bolen.
"Shots started going in and I think our kids started feeling it a little bit more and the momentum picked up," Serevicz said. "When we play as a team is when we win. When we play as a team, we look like a team and that's what the difference is."
Brooke kept up that momentum in the second half and out-scored the Monarchs 24-18 over the remainder of the game. After being out-scored 19-2 in the first quarter, Brooke held a 40-30 advantage the rest of the way. That opening salvo from John Marshall proved to be just a bit too much to overcome, however.
Melko said his team started to stray away from their strengths in the second half. In the first quarter, the Monarchs found success in their halfcourt offense by throwing the ball inside to their post players. When they tried to make plays in transition and shoot quickly was when their scoring dried up.
"We're trying to walk a fine line," Melko admitted. "We had chances to run (in transition) but we're just not good right now in transition. Hopefully we can work on it and get better as the season goes, but right now we are not very good in transition offense. We're much better when we can slow it down, take care of the ball, throw it inside to our strength and make them adjust to that.
"When we had success, I thought we were just being smart and diligent about throwing it inside and letting our bigs go to work. When we weren't so successful, we kind of got away from that and started running around and throwing up bad shots."
Brooke cut JM's lead as small as seven points in the fourth quarter, but was never able to put together one final run to get over the hump.
The Bruins had a chance to get it to five when Bailey Serevicz grabbed a steal and started on a fastbreak, but she was met under the basket by JM's Lilie Babiczuk and was not able to get a good shot up. Even so, Coach Serevicz liked the fight she saw out of her team Monday.
"This group of girls are all heart and they give me everything that they've got," She said. "(Wheeling) Park pounded us the other night and they still never stopped (playing hard). They are just completely all heart and they don't stop."
JM's Kayli Derrow, Landyn Helms and Brooke's Bolen all finished tied with a game-high 13 points.
Blake finished with nine and Catherine Hunnell scored seven for the victors.
Angelina Lippoli finished second for the Bruins with 12 points, including a pair of triples. Point guard Madison Platt chipped in seven.
JM will be back in action on Thursday when they host Indian Creek while Brooke will take a week off and return next Monday with a home game against Oak Glen.