EDWARDSVILLE – It took a bit for Edwardsville's girls basketball team to settle into its game Wednesday night in a Southwestern Conference confrontation against East St. Louis at Lucco-Jackson Gym, felt Tiger coach Lori Blade.
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Once the Tigers got settled, EHS got their game going and went on to take a 55-32 win over the Flyers to take their record to 10-0 overall, 4-0 in the SWC going into the Visitation Christmas Tournament beginning Saturday afternoon; the Flyers fell to 6-2 overall, 3-2 in the league.
“We just didn't settle in; they sped us up a little bit – that's what (Flyer coach Antonio Mattox) wanted to do; he does a good job with those kids. We just needed to settle in; we didn't hit the shots – we had pretty good looks – we just didn't get them to go down in that box-and-one, and didn't just didn't settle in quite like we should have there at the beginning.
“We did as we went on, and in the second half, once we sat down and went through some stuff, we did a much better job.”
It wasn't the first time the Tigers had a box-and-one thrown at them. “Other people have done it to us too,” Blade said. “Metro tried it in St. Louis and we hit five threes, so it was just a matter of kids hitting shots; we had them, they just weren't going down.
“We walk in at halftime shooting 28 percent and we're up 10 – I'll take that. We were OK, we just needed to settle down, and we've been a little bit the last couple of days at practice – we knew that and it carried over into the game; they're smart kids, they'll figure it out.”
The game got out to a slow start, Edwardsville taking the early lead before breaking loose and getting out to an 11-4 lead on the Flyers at quarter time before expanding the lead to 22-12 at the half, getting key scores from Myriah Haywood and Rachel Pranger to expand the lead. Once the second half started, things began to flow for Edwardsville as key contributions came in from Haywood, Pranger and Jaylen Townsend; Edwardsville held the lead at 39-21 at three-quarter time and went on to run out winners on the night.
Haywood led the Tigers with 17 points on the night while Pranger contributed 14 points, with Townsend adding eight points and Kate Martin and Quierra Love getting seven each. The Flyers were led by Kaysie Newsom and Mya Glanton with eight points each.
Edwardsville begins play in the Visitation tournament in St. Louis County at 1 p.m. Saturday against Parkway South; a Saturday win would send them to the quarterfinals against the Washington, Mo.-Webster Groves winner at 8:30 p.m. Dec. 26.
