Columbus East’s Ella Anthis (3) and Hayden Meek battle for the ball with Purdue Poly Englewood’s Ro’niya McNeil during Tuesday’s game in the Orange Pit at Columbus East High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
Columbus East simply ran out of time in Tuesday night’s girls basketball season opener.
Trailing by 19 points with 7 1/2 minutes left in the game, the Olympians staged a furious rally to put a scare into Purdue Poly Englewood, but the Techies hung on for a 54-50 victory.
Purdue Poly led by as many as 22 points in the first half and led 37-18 at halftime.
“I told them at halftime when we went in, I was coaching them to win this game,” East coach Kaitlyn Phillips said. “I wasn’t done. I wasn’t ready to give up, and I felt like we could still claw our way back and that’s exactly what the girls did.”
The Olympians got to within 13 late in the third quarter, but the Techies built the lead back to 50-33 going into the fourth and let 52-33 after a basket to open the final period. East then went on a 13-0 run, cutting the lead to 52-46 on a basket by Ella Anthis with 3:57 remaining.
Purdue Poly got a basket from Te’Asia Briscoe to stop the run and extend the lead to eight with 3:21 left. The Olympians had chances to cut into the lead, but could not until getting a pair of baskets in the final minute.
“Last year, I think our struggle was also not starting in the first quarter,” said Anthis, who scored 13 of her game-high 15 points in the second half. “As coach says, you can’t win a basketball game in the first quarter, but you can sure lose one. We just need to be better about our first quarter. Maybe we need a little bit better of a warmup. I think we can win games if we play a full game instead of just a half.”
The Techies’ pressure caused East problems in the first half, when the Olympians committed 15 of their 21 turnovers.
“Like I say to our girls pretty often, we can never win a basketball game in the first quarter, but we can lose one, and turnovers killed us,” Phillips said. “We knew going into the game that was No. 1 on our keys to the game was taking care of the basketball, and to go into halftime with close to 20, it’s going to be really difficult to win a basketball game with that many turnovers, especially when they’re all live-ball and they’re scoring in transition as often as they were. Once we were able to take care of the basketball and get some stops on defense to where they couldn’t set up their 1-2-2 (zone), it resulted in better things for us for sure.”
And when East had Purdue Poly in a half-court situation, the Olympians had much more success. East forced 23 turnovers, including 10 in the fourth quarter.
“I felt pretty good about our half-court defense,” Phillips said. “If we can just take care of the basketball, I feel pretty good about where this is going, and obviously, we were able to speed them up too in the second half and get some turnovers of our own and were able to score on those. We’re definitely a defensive-minded team.”
Freshman Hayden Meek got the start and scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Olympians to a 37-30 advantage on the boards.
Purdue Poly Englewood 54, Columbus East 50
Purdue Englewood;19;18;13;4;—;54
Columbus East;9;9;15;17;—;50
Purdue Poly Englewood (1-0): Ja’Nyiah Rogers 1 2-6 4, Te’Asia Briscoe 7 0-2 14, Madeline Pena-Valdez 2 0-0 6, Coreah Lewis 2 0-0 5, Sharr Mays 1 0-0 2, Marrina Simmons 1 0-0 3, Lorren Hickes 3 0-2 6, Amelia Story 5 0-0 14, Myracle Williams-Hatchett 0 0-0 0. Totals: 22 2-10 54.
Columbus East (0-1): Kenzie Cheek 2 0-0 4, Lola Watkins 1 2-2 4, Ella Anthis 6 2-2 15, Emma Armstrong 0 0-0 0, Krea Martin 0 0-0 0, Allison Halstead 2 0-0 5, Hayden Meek 4 1-2 9, Lucy Ross 0 0-0 0, Brelyn Pool 2 1-2 5, Bailey Rohde 2 0-2 4, Averie Graham 1 2-2 4. Totals: 20 8-12 50.
3-point goals: Purdue Poly Englewood 8 (Story 4, Pena-Valdez 2, Lewis, Simmons). Columbus East 2 (Anthis, Halstead).
