Girl’s Basketball: Freshman Chemics crush Cavaliers

by Cory Butzin

Midland High School freshman girl’s basketball coach Sara Jeroue told her team that if they could score the first basket Wednesday that they would win.

She was right.

The Chemics defense came out playing with great intensity, forcing turnovers that allowed the offense to open up a big first-half lead and cruise to a 49-11 win over Carman Ainsworth at Midland High School.

“We came out very strong defensively,” Jeroue said. “The pressure was there. We caused turnovers and we had a good fast break.”

That pressure built a 32-7 first-half lead, helped by Lauren Keyser who led all scorers on the evening with 13 points, while going 5-for-6 from the line.

Despite their success and first-half intensity, Midland came out of the half a little sluggish. The Cavaliers capitalized on Chemic turnovers to score the first four points of the third quarter.

“When we take off our press we tend to fall back and play sluggish,” Jeroue said. “That hurts us in the long run, but we can’t be pressing when you’re up by twenty points.”

Midland regained its intensity, though, and didn’t allow another point as their offense got on track scoring 17 second-half points.

“I feel like when we have the press on our pressure is there,” Jeroue said. “When we don’t, we slack off and that’s where we need to get our half-court defense and our man-to-man more intense and we’ll work on that.”

Allison Vezina and Ashley Cullison helped the Chemics offensively, contributing eight and five points respectively.

“This was a good offensive game to get us prepared for Dow,” Jeroue said.

The win brought Midland back over .500 pushing their season record to 3-2. They are in action again Friday when they host their cross-town rivals. Tip-off is schedule for 6 p.m.