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CIRCLEVILLE — When Unioto shoots the basketball like it did on Tuesday evening, the Shermans are nearly invincible.
A white-hot night from beyond the 3-point arc — where the team went 10-of-21 — and an impressive showing on the defensive end led Unioto to a 60-43 win over Circleville in non-league action.
The Shermans (18-4) weren’t afraid to move the ball and it paid dividends. Of the team’s 22 field goals, 17 had assists attached to them.
That’s music to Miller’s ears.
“I’ve been harping about our assist numbers for the last two weeks,” Unioto coach Jeff Miller said. “I’ve said that if we’re sharing the basketball, then our shot selection is a lot better, which means our percentage is going to increase. In the tournament, you have to be doing that and you have to be clicking on all cylinders. That was a big thing for us tonight.”
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
Early on, Circleville (18-4) held its own.
After Unioto’s Keyairah Beard got the party started with a 3 just 26 seconds into the action, the Tigers looked to Division III District 14 Player of the Year Addison Edgington for an answer.
The sophomore scored three quick buckets to put Circleville ahead 7-3 with 5:16 to play. But that was the first and last gasp of momentum that the Tigers would take.
Milee Smith buried a 3 for a 7-6 count before knocking down another triple with 3:10 left in the first quarter, giving Unioto its first lead at 9-7.
And from there, the Shermans were off and running.
“We had a couple of different defensive philosophies that we wanted to have tonight,” Miller said. “The first one, I don’t think, was speeding [Circleville] up too much. We made a couple of changes on the fly and we could see them starting to speed up. That was our whole plan tonight, to speed the game up. If we let them walk it up, pound the ball inside and get into a 2-3 zone, we were going to be in trouble. And that’s not who we are. We play uptempo. We had to get that going.”
Edgington scored again for a 9-9 tie but Beard scored five straight points to make it 14-9. By the end of the first quarter, with help from Smith and Mya Hamilton, Unioto owned a 19-11 advantage.
Smith immediately dialed long distance to begin the second, pushing the lead to 10, before Circleville used a mix of Edgington, Jocelyn McLaughlin and Juliana Sims-Ross to cut the deficit to 26-20 at the 4:20 mark.
But Smith and Hamilton quickly answered, pushing the lead back into double digits — it never dipped below 10 points again. When Hamilton sank another trey with 57.4 seconds to play, it finalized a halftime score of 36-23.
Throughout the second half, Unioto was in cruise control as Smith, Hamilton and Maggie Holbert continued to fill up the bucket.
“Most times, if you say that you’re going to go play a team that plays a 2-3 zone, you’re thinking they’re going to pack it in,” Miller said. “[Circleville’s] 2-3 is a little different. They get a lot of deflections, a lot of steals and they cause you to throw lazy passes. So all week, we talked about how every pass needed to be crisp and crucial. We wanted to get it to the spots we needed to get it to, and efficiently. I thought the kids did a really nice job of that tonight.”
Smith led the Shermans statistically with 19 points and seven assists while Hamilton posted 18 points. Beard ended the night with 11 points and Maggie Holbert added six points, four rebounds and five helpers.
Edgington led all scorers with 21 points alongside eight rebounds while Thornsley chipped in with five points, four rebounds and four assists.
Both teams will now look towards postseason play.
While Circleville will match up with either Logan Elm or Circleville at 2 p.m. on Saturday in a Division IV district quarterfinal, Unioto awaits the winner of Athens and Chillicothe in a Division III district quarterfinal at the same time.
If the seeds work out, the Shermans will meet with Athens, who boasts an athletic roster that has adopted the run-and-gun mentality.
“We’re not going to change the style we play,” Miller said. “We know our style has to be uptempo. It might be a situation where we’re not pushing the ball like we did tonight. But we’re not going to change. Athens likes to play uptempo and they’re a good team. It should be a good game.”
BOX SCORE
Unioto: 19-17-13-11 — 60
Circleville: 11-12-7-13 — 43
Unioto: 23-48 FG, 4-9 FT, 10-21 3pt., 16 rebounds (Holbert 4), 9 turnovers, 17 assists (Smith 7). Scoring: Smith 19, Hamilton 18, Beard 11, Holbert 6, Walker 4, Puckett 2.
Circleville: 19-42 FG, 3-8 FT, 2-7 3pt., 29 rebounds (Edgington 8), 21 turnovers, 14 assists (West 5). Scoring: Edgington 21, Thornsley 5, West 4, Blakeman 3, McLaughlin 3, McConnell 3, Sims-Ross 2, Burchett 2.
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