Mascenic girls’ basketball gets back into the win column
Published: 01-16-2025 12:03 PM |
The Mascenic girls' basketball team snapped its losing streak and picked up its first victory of the season with a wire-to-wire win over visiting Hinsdale on Monday night.
The Vikings jumped out to an immediate lead and never looked back on their way to a 42-33 win, their first since Jan. 31, 2024.
"They played good tonight," said Mascenics first-year head coach Tony Zina after the game. "Hopefully that carries on now that they finally know what a win feels like."
The Vikings were 0-6 on the year coming into Monday's game, having launched their 2024-25 campaign with a 13-point loss at Hinsdale that saw Pacer guard Gemma Doty drop 29 on the Vikes. But in Monday's rematch, Mascenic took what they'd learned from their losses and applied it to a win.
"It was probably a coaching thing," Zina said of their early loss. "I had them play man-on-man, and tonight I just played a 2-3 zone, and we had really good help defense from everybody. They stepped in and when [Doty] went to the hoop, they were there stopping her."
Doty was held to just three field goals, scoring the bulk of her 20 points on free throws. Mia Glavey and Hailey Saari were her primary defenders, as several Vikings stepped up Monday in the absence of usual starting point guard Jordin Schuler.
With Schuler unavailable, freshman Fiona Alix took over the ballhandling. She was steady with the ball, limiting turnovers, and made a string of clutch plays late in the game. When Hinsdale closed the gap to just two points in the fourth quarter, Alix hit a three, picked the point guard's pocket and drove for a layup to extend the lead back to seven. And with 90 seconds left, Alix hit another three, this one a dagger that put Mascenic up nine. She finished with 12 points.
"That was big, big play from her tonight,"Zina said. "Freshman, all year she kind of struggled with the passing and stuff, but tonight she stepped up and she did her job. I was very pleased with her play tonight."
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Mascenic's Sienna Gregory led the team in scoring with 18 points, with three 3-pointers, and Hannah Cargill added another 10 on some baseline jumpers.
"Our shots were falling for us tonight, and we've been struggling all year with shooting," Zina said. "We haven't found our rhythm yet with shooting. They made a lot of good shots tonight. We hit a bunch of threes tonight, which we haven't done all year."
If the offense keeps rolling, the Vikings should start winning more frequently, as their defense is already solid. They have pesky guards to bother ballhandlers, senior Lorelai Shippee to cut them off at the top of the key and down-low presence Brooke Bishop at the rim to turn them away and grab rebounds. It was all working Monday night.
"Overall as a team, I was very happy with the way we played," Zina said. "Hopefully we can keep it up and go through the year and get a few more wins."
Mascenic (1-6) has their next shot Friday at 5 p.m. at home against Moultonborough (5-5).