HANOVER — Columbus East had to shake off a bit of rust in the first couple of minutes of Friday’s game against Scottsburg in the quarterfinal of the Rumble on the River Tournament at Southwestern (Hanover).
Once the Olympians found their rhythm, they were hard to stop. East scored 37 unanswered points at one point and held Scottsburg to zero second-quarter points to get the 66-19 win.
The Olympians move on to the semifinals to take on Charlestown at 10 a.m. today. Should East win, it will play for the championship at 5 p.m.
The Warriors (7-8) had an 8-6 lead before the Olympians (10-2) made the 37-point charge to take a 43-8 lead in the third quarter.
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“At first, we didn’t come out with a lot of intensity, but we just had to put down some shots,” said East senior Addy Galarno, who had a game-high 24 points. “Once we started doing that, we got on a roll and just kept going.”
Claire Cunningham finished the game with 10 points for the Olympians, but her defensive presence stood out by making several blocks and rebounds during East’s scoring spree.
“Once we got going, our press created a lot of offense,” East coach Danny Brown said. “Addy and Claire really played well for us in the first half. They picked us up a little bit, and we got going after that.
Charlestown will be more of a test for East today.
“They’re a really good team, and they’ve got a good player in (Samantha) Matthews,” Brown said. “We have to play our game. I feel like if we play our game, we’ll be OK. We have to come out with a better start, though.”
Kristen Lyons finished with eight points and Britney Ballard drained a couple from long range to finish with eight points, as well.
“We need to take this win and take this momentum over from this game into (the Charlestown) game,” Galarno said. “Also sharing the ball like we did tonight, and we all got a decent amount of points, and I think that was a big key for us tonight.”
