Nothing ugly about River Valley's play at Marion Harding
MARION ― Ugly Christmas sweaters? You bet. Ugly basketball? Not a chance Thursday night for River Valley.
In what is now an annual tradition with the girls coaching staffs of both programs to wear holiday-themed outfits for the game scheduled before the holidays, the Vikings played three quarters of beautiful basketball on the road and defeated Marion Harding 57-35 in a Mid Ohio Athletic Conference game.
"We talked to the girls before this game that records don’t matter. It’s a rivalry game, and you’ve got to come out to play. We shot the ball real well early and got some open looks and it gave us the lead," River Valley coach Tim Chiles said, while sporting a winter-themed sweater in blue and neon yellow.
RV senior Brooklyn Mosher had her most effective game of the season and got going early. She nailed a 3-pointer from the left wing to put her team up 7-2 with 4:41 left in the first quarter. Two minutes later she converted a 3-point play for a 12-4 edge and then dropped another 3-pointer from the same spot on the wing for a 15-6 edge.
In the first two minutes in the second period, River Valley junior Lexie Hecker scored a layup and popped in a bank shot to bump the lead to 21-8. The Vikings went into halftime with a 34-16 advantage.
"We just didn’t execute," Marion Harding coach Cory White said, who wore a green, red and white patterned suit on Thursday. "We were extremely flat in the first half. We had three days to game plan, and we didn’t do much of our game plan at all. We didn’t execute."
Chiles warned his team that Harding would make an adjustment at the break and would likely amp up the pressure on defense. He was right.
In the other locker room, White didn't jump his team at halftime, but he had a curt message nonetheless.
"We went in and talked about our character and talked about our effort," White said. "I don’t know how to coach effort. I told them I don’t know how to get them pumped up to give 100 percent effort when they’re on the court. We have subs so we can sub, but they responded well."
Out of an early third-period timeout, Hecker dropped a 3-pointer to give her team an 18-point lead with just over five minutes left. From there, the Presidents went to work.
Aniya Mitchell and Kamrice Jackson made back-to-back 3-pointers; Mitchell turned a spin move into a runner, and Jackson scored on a baseline jumper to slice the RV lead to 39-30 with 3:02 left in the period, forcing the Vikings to call a time out.
"Now we’re in a dog fight," Chiles said of his message during the timeout. "We got ourselves here because we turned the ball over. Take care of it. Defend the way we’re capable of defending, and we’ll be okay. There wasn’t much to tell them. We kind of knew coming in what they were going to do, and they knew what we were going to do. It was just execution. Taking care of the ball was big. We turned the ball over way too much in the third quarter."
Harding had chances to get closer over the course of the last three minutes of the period but went scoreless. A Mosher 3-pointer from the corner with 12 seconds left took the lead to 42-30. Harding would get no closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
"Nerves got a little bit to us," Chiles said of the early third-quarter slump. "They cut it to nine, but I told them that’s the maturity of our team. We kept it and got it back to 20. We moved the ball really well and made some extra passes in that fourth quarter and got some wide-open looks."
Harding managed just five points over the last 11 minutes.
"We came out in the third quarter on fire," White said. "I think we won that quarter, and it was the only quarter we were close to winning. Then we just kind of folded. I don’t know if the gas tank was empty. We had been going hard in practice, but we just couldn’t keep up with them tonight."
That's in large part because of the play of Mosher. She was 5 of 12 on 2-pointers and a hot 4 of 9 from the arc, making all five of her free throws for 27 points. Hecker was an efficient 3 of 4 inside the arc and 2 of 5 behind it for 12 points. Freshman Megan Clausing was a spark off the bench, scoring nine points.
"Brooklyn was on fire. She was pretty dang good," White said. "I thought River Valley was a favorite from the beginning of the season, and they came into our house and showed us."
Overall, RV shot 38 percent from 2-point range, converted 37 percent on 3-pointers and made 10 of 11 foul shots.
Harding scored 14 points in the third quarter, but was held to single digits in the other three.
"They don’t score a ton of points, so they can put up 30 or 40 or 50," Chiles said of the Presidents. "We knew if we could get into the 50s we’d be good, but we had to get a good start. Defensively we try to hold teams in the 30s. We did that. That’s what we’re trying to hang our hat on — defense."
Harding got 14 points from Mitchell and 13 from Jackson, but just eight points from the rest of the roster. The Prexies shot 27 percent on 2-pointers, made 1 of 6 on threes and was just 4 of 10 from the foul line.
As for RV, Chiles liked what he got from his two veterans in Mosher and Hecker.
"The girls have started for us for three years," he said of the duo. "They know the game well enough. They know they are the people on the team that are going to have to score consistently for us. They know when to take over, and that’s nice to have as a coach, not just one but a couple of girls who know that.
"Tonight, they were very unselfish. They shared the basketball and made the extra pass. Brooklyn had a nice pass to Lexie for a wide-open three. If we can get them to do that — step up and score and pass the ball — we’re going to be pretty tough."
River Valley (4-3, 3-1) hosts MOAC-leading Shelby, while Harding (2-4, 2-2) travels to Clear Fork with both games on Saturday.
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This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Nothing ugly about River Valley's play at Marion Harding
