Edwardsville girls avenge loss against Collinsville on Tuesday night
EDWARDSVILLE – Tuesday night's return match between Collinsville's and Edwardsville's girls basketball teams didn't start out exactly on an attractive note.
Tiger coach Lori Blade even called it “sloppy” on both sides.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
But a pair of three-point shots from Edwardsville's Makenzie Silvey right before the halftime siren seemed to spark the Tigers, and a run that got them up by 11 points in the third term proved to be the difference as EHS downed the Kahoks 64-44 in a Southwestern Conference game at Lucco-Jackson Gym.
“I thought in the first half, both sides were a little sloppy; it just wasn't good basketball,” Blade said. “Both sides were anxious to get going again; the last minute and a half, I thought, were huge to finish out the first half and then, the first three minutes of the third quarter.”
Silvey's two three-balls – the second of which sent Edwardsville (15-1 overall, 6-1 SWC) into the locker room up 21-18 – gave the Tigers the lift they needed. “We changed the offense a little bit with some kids on the bench,” Blade said, “but she knocked them down. I thought we got some good looks in the first quarter and nothing fell, that's part of the game. But second quarter, I thought we rushed some things and we were out of sync a little bit. Credit Collinsville for that.
“We settled in the second half and I thought the kids executed pretty well.”
For the Kahoks, things seemed out of sync for them as well and Edwardsville took advantage. “We caught a couple of fouls, we had to pull some kids out and put other kids in,” said Kahok coach Lori Billy. “We got out of our rhythm a little bit, but they didn't get up on us too much; I think they got up 10 or 12 (points) and we came back down.
“We tried to keep it as close as we could and get those kids back in. It kind of shifted our motion. We hit a couple of big shots; Carlee Mahan came down and hit a couple of big threes that really gave us a chance to get back in it. You look at the score and it says 20, but the game was really closer than that.”
The fact that Collinsville (8-8 overall, 3-4 SWC), back in December, stunned the Tigers on a last-second shot that ended EHS' six-year, 89-game SWC winning streak also played a factor, at least in the pre-game hype. “We tried to just stay on that even keel,” Blade said. “We wanted to see how much we've improved since then, and I think that we have. I think that loss did fire us a little bit; Collinsville deserved to win that night and I think we were a little bit better tonight.
“The kids executed well when they had to; we just have to quit getting out of position defensively and play better fundamental defense than what we did.”
Silvey led the way for the Tigers with 19 points, with Rachel Pranger adding 18 and Criste'on Waters 15. The Kahoks were led by Kaitlyn Fischer's 12 points, with Mahan and Gabby Morgan scoring eight points each.
Edwardsville also won the junior-varsity curtain-raiser, the Tigers downing the Kahoks 62-31.
Edwardsville will host Alton in a boys-girls SWC doubleheader Friday night, with the girls game beginning at 6 p.m. and the boys game following at approximately 7:30 p.m.
More like this:
- Most Popular
- Top Stories
- Most Recent
