Maguire gets 300th win as Zionsville rolls Avon
Nov. 19—AVON — One of the big goals for the Zionsville girls basketball team this year is to win the Hoosier Crossroads Conference title.
On Friday night, they started off conference play with a bang.
The Eagles topped Avon 76-43 to improve to 6-0 and 1-0 in the HCC.
"I thought we played extremely well tonight," Zionsville head coach Andy Maguire said. "It started off a little slow, we got into some foul trouble early and didn't play our smartest, but we really had some girls step up. Allie Caldwell had one of her better games with 17 points, and Laila (Hull) had her consistent 23-point game. Emma (Haan) hit a couple of big 3s for us too. Avon is a good team, they are very quick and overall I thought we did a good job tonight."
Zionsville led by 11 at the quarter and pushed the lead to 21 at the half.
That grew to 31 by the end of the third.
Avon came into the game averaging 64.6 points a game and scored at least 60 in all five of their previous games.
But the Eagles utilized numerous defenses to keep them off balance, and it worked wonders.
"We haven't done a lot of switching defenses in games, but its something we work on every day in practice," Maguire said. "It was nice in the second half to go zone for a while and really slow them down and made them shoot some shots they weren't used to shooting. Then we rebounded well out of that too. We got a really good game from our posts — Jordyn (Coleman) and Mallory (Heerdt). They were really solid, defended well, rebounded well and screened well too."
The win was number 300 of Maguire's career.
He is 226-198 in his time at Zionsville.
"It means more when you think about the players that helped you get there," Maguire said. "You don't get to 300 wins without really good players. I have been so lucky, not just at Zionsville but Western Boone before that, to have a lot of really good players. I really appreciate my assistant coaches too. With Bronson Lickliter and Kelyn Block on the bench, I feel really secure and blessed and I know we will be solid on both ends of the court. I am so lucky to coach at Zionsville. I don't think people understand really what a great school system it is and what kids we have. Most coaches don't get to experience that. It's been a great time and I have enjoyed every second of it."
The Eagles have a busy and challenging Thanksgiving week.
They host Fishers on Tuesday in another big HCC match-up, then face Bedford North Lawrence on Saturday at Brownsburg.
"We just want to keep doing the things we work on every day in practice," Maguire said. "When we do that, we are really solid. There were moments tonight when we got out of sync and tried to do things we don't really work on, and that's usually not very successful. No matter who we play, if we stay within ourselves and play like we are capable of, I think we can play with anyone in the state of Indiana. Next week is going to be a really good test for our program to see where we are. We know we're good, but are we really good? Because we will find out Tuesday against Fishers and then again on Saturday. Even if we don't win, it will be a good indicator of where we are. We are looking forward to it and it should be a lot of fun."
Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.
