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WEST UNION — Eastern Brown only has seven players on its varsity roster.
But don’t let the numbers fool you. By the way the Warriors play, how hard they battle and their level of relentlessness for 32 minutes, it’s no surprise they’re now 5-2.
They shook off a slow first half, outshot West Union in the second and held the Dragons to just two second half field goals, running away late with a 54-33 victory in SHAC action.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
“These kids have so much heart. They work incredibly hard, they want to win for one another and they’re just a great group of girls to coach,” Eastern Brown coach Kevin Pickerill said. “On one hand, I’d love to have a few more kids in the program, this way we can do more things. But on the other hand, having more kids might mess up our chemistry. It’s definitely different since I give a lot more off days than I normally would. But these kids have really responded well to everything up to this point in the season.”
Eastern Brown (5-2, 3-0 SHAC) started with a 6-1 lead, thanks to buckets inside from Clara Martin, Alyssa Johnston and Tabby Schumacher.
But the Warriors were occupied with worrying about where West Union’s Ashlah Staten and Madison Stout were on the court, and understandably so.
Having said that, Annabella McIntosh took matters into her own hands. There was no microwave effect to her game. She had the hot hand from the first touch.
With no hesitation to put the ball up, she scored the Dragons’ next seven points before Staten uncorked a deep triple to beat the buzzer, putting them ahead 11-10 at the end of the first quarter.
“Definitely some things I would have changed. We missed a lot of bunnies and left a lot of points on the board early,” Pickerill said. “McIntosh got some shots off early, which gave them momentum. We were playing well and I thought our defense played great. We just needed to convert some early chances.”
PHOTOS: Images from Eastern’s win over West Union
Olivia Lewis buried a triple for the Dragons (4-2, 2-2 SHAC) early in the second, but the Warriors countered behind Sophia Uhl and Vivian Grimes for a 6-0 run that gave them the lead at 17-14.
Uhl then hit another shot. But the rest of the quarter belonged to the Dragons.
McIntosh connected on a bucket and drilled another triple before Shelbi Weakly followed by scoring on a turnaround jumper that put the Dragons ahead 21-19 at halftime.
“There wasn’t much that we changed at halftime. But we, as a coaching staff, challenged the girls defensively with our hand position and told them to get out a little further past the 3-point line, instead of sinking back,” Pickerill said. “Everyone wants to score, but sometimes the offense needs to run itself and whoever is open needs to go score. We needed to just find some confidence and let it happen.”
Right out of the gates, the Warriors found that confidence.
Schumacher connected and Grimes scored on back-to-back possessions for a 6-0 run that put them back in the lead at 25-21. Martin knocked down a pair of 3’s, Lilly Yuppa added a triple to the mix, and the Warriors outscored the Dragons by an 18-8 margin in the third quarter to control a 37-29 lead.
That avalanche of momentum never left the Warriors’ bench.
Yuppa knocked down two more treys, and the defense held the Dragons without a field goal in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.
“Vivian Grimes was huge. She provided a major spark early and played incredible defense on McIntosh to limit her chances and touches,” Pickerill said. “We ran a quick set to open the second half and get Tabby involved. Seeing the ball go through the net brings on a wave of confidence and it just went from that point. It’s tough to have confidence when you’re only ahead two-to-four points. But when that lead gets up to eight-to-10 points, your confidence only grows and it spreads throughout the team because everyone starts hitting shots.”
Uhl finished with 12 points and seven rebounds to lead the Warriors, while Martin added 11 points. Grimes and Lilly Yuppa added nine points each.
McIntosh finished with 12 points for West Union, followed by Lewis with 11 points.
Eastern Brown returns to action on Saturday for SHAC action at home against North Adams, while West Union rebounds on Monday at Manchester.
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