O’Fallon girls deafeat host team at annual Highland Tournament
The Highland girls basketball team finished an up-and-down week in the 37th annual Apex Physical Therapy and Fitness Center HIghland Tournament on a down note on Saturday.
Two days after coming from behind in overtime to knock off Taylorville (56-51) in overtime, the Bulldogs just did not have enough mojo left to deal with defending Class 4A champ, O’Fallon.
O’Fallon, ranked seventh in Class 4A got big days from D’Myjah Bolds and Haeli Tart and rolled to a 54-33 win over HHS in the fifth-place game of tbe tournament at Highland High School.
It was a tough but competitive finish for Highland (18-9) after going 2 and 2 for the week in their own tournament.
“It’s all the same for everybody (in the tournament),” Highland coach Clint Hamilton said. “Nobody has two or three days to prepare and scout but we tried to get as prepared as we could in one day and kudos to our girls for buying in and reading the scouting and doing what we asked them to do.”
O’Fallon jumped out to a 19-10 lead late in the first quarter thanks to a Bolds three-ball and conventional three-point play from Tart.
A Bolds triple and a free-throw by Carolyn Foster upped the Panthers lead to 28-15 midway through the second quarter.
“They did a good job of pressing our guards and they really controlled the pace of tbe game, and we want to play fast but not quite the speed they like to play at, so they jumped out on top early made some threes early and then it’s tough to dig out of the hole,” Hamilton said.
In the third quarter, the Panthers continued to roll as another Bolds bucket extended the lead to 45-25 and OTHS carried a 16-point lead into the fourth quarter.
“They exploited a few things we were trying to do defensively but they’re a really good team and we didn’t do a few things on our end, and they played really well,” Hamilton said.
O’Fallon continued to score in the fourth quarter as Highland was unable to cut in the lead and both teams emptied their benches in tbe final two minutes of play.
Bolds led O’Fallon with a game-high 22 points, scoring 12 points from beyond the arc. Tart added 11 points.
Senior post Larissa Taylor topped Highland with 17 points.
