The Columbus East girls basketball team took care of visiting Batesville quickly to post an 82-30 win Tuesday night.
The Olympians (13-5) started the game outscoring the Bulldogs (8-14) 20-3 and led 23-6 after the first quarter. East then went up 45-12 until Batesville scored the final five points of the half to make it 45-17.
In the second half, East coach Danny Brown rotated several players in and out, and all 11 players that came into the game scored.
“We’ve mostly been playing eight or nine for the most part all season,” Brown said. “Jenna (Guse) and Harley (Gant) have had great years on the JV team, and we wanted to get them some playing time. We started that (rotation) in the second half. It put us in some combinations that we haven’t had all year. They all looked pretty good. I was glad to see some of the combinations that we had in there. The spacing and the ball movement worked, and we got everybody involved. Everybody was unselfish, and all 11 players scored, and that was what we needed going into Thursday (against Cathedral) and next week (in the sectional).
The scoring was balanced most of the way, with Maeleigh Roberts hitting four 3-pointers for 12 points to lead the East scoring. Kaitlyn Carothers finished with 11; Allison Craig had 10; Leah Bachmann, Saige Stahl and Koryn Greiwe all added nine and Gabby Dean had eight.
“We wanted to get in everyone that we could, and (Brown) wanted to see who worked with who,” Roberts said. “We have really good team chemistry, and that’s a good thing to have on the team.”
Greiwe’s nine points moved her to third place on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,246, passing Audrey Wetzel (1239) and Allison (Lee) White (1237). Shelby Ross is second all-time with 1,359, and Maria Stack the all-time leader with 1,518.
The Olympians are on a six-game winning streak and will wrap up the regular on Thursday with a home contest against Cathedral.
