PITSBURG – It was a successful night for the seniors Ladies at Franklin Monroe as they defeated Mississinawa Valley in Basketball 46-36 and also marked the first win for new head coach Zane Shellabarger.
Due to Covid-19 and uncertainties they opted to recognize the seniors at their first home game and those seniors were Chloe McGlinch, Janessa Koffer and Stella Shellabarger.
Senior Chloe McGlinch was fired up from the start connecting on her first three shots all triples to jumpstart the Jets to an early 9-5 lead.
The Jet’s had to overcome 8 points scored by MV’s Mattie Hiestand on their way to an 18-8 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The scoring pace slowed in the 2nd quarter but the Jets were able to maintain their lead at the break 26-17.
Hiestand came out of the locker room firing a triple to close the gap to 26-20 … but McGlinch was there to answer and match the effort as the Hawks would get no closer than 6 points the rest of the game.
But that didn’t take away from the effort Mississinawa gave, despite the Jets vaulting out to a 17 point lead 39-22 after a Lillie Shellabarger lay-up that prompted MV coach Gwen Bergman to call a timeout.
That timeout rallied her team to crawl back into the game to only trail 39-28 at the end of the 3rd quarter.
“We did a really nice job building a lead … but I think conditioning is still bit of an issue with not much of an off-season and a limited roster,” coach Shellabarger said.
“I tip my hat to Mississinawa, Gwen is doing a good job there and has them playing hard, they stuck around, hit a few shots and played us tough,” Shellabarger praised.
The Hawks stepped up their defense the final stanza and was able to clamp down on Chloe McGlinch with who had 6 triples and 20 points on the night to lead all scorer
In fact, only one player scored for the Jets, Jaliyah Nichols with 7 of her 10 points on the night coming in the frame.
It was enough to allow the Jets to hold off an impressive performance by Mattie Hiestand with 19 points and a vastly improved Mississinawa Valley team from last year.
I talked with Coach Gwen Bergman about that improvement after the game.
“I’m very happy with our effort here tonight, the girls played hard and no drop-off from one girl to the next no matter who I put in the game. There were times we were out of position on the press, missed some bunnies we should have made, but those are all things fixable. We need to get better on our on ball defense and pick-up one on one in transition defense. We did a good job penetrating tonight, had open shots, took the open shot, all positive things. These girls have really been working hard and I’m very proud of them,” Bergman stated.
“It was the goal of our seniors this year is to be more competitive and that’s exactly what they did tonight, it’s not the outcome we wanted but it’s a step in the right direction,” Bergman concluded.
While walking away Bergman turned and said … “be sure and let Chloe McGlinch know congrats on a great game.”
You won’t get any argument from Franklin Monroe coach Zane Shellabarger as he talked individually about his three seniors.
“Chloe McGlinch, I’ve always known she can shoot the ball and she really showed us that tonight she is a special shooter and if we can get her open that’s better for us, she had a fantastic game shooting the ball tonight and my hope is she has a whole lot more of them left this season.” Shellabarger beamed.
Janessa Koffer is a great kid, bless her heart, if she would have been on the hardwood for the last 3 years there is no telling where she could be. She is trying to get her feet under her and plays so hard and loves defense and really contributed for us tonight in that area.
Stella Shellabarger, she’s putting a lot of pressure on herself as the only returning starter and pushing herself a little bit.
Coach Shellabarger was a bit reticent to expand upon his own daughter. But I pointed out my observation on how fundamentally sound a player she is doing the little things, boxing out, getting loose balls, blocking shots, passing the ball and doing the little things many don’t see. He then acknowledged, yes even from a young age playing out in the barn she’s always played tough doing those little things which all adds up to bigger things over the course of a game.
All three of my seniors are tremendous kids, they are slowly starting to figure out how to lead this team, they have a lot of eyes watching and looking up to them and they are accepting the role well.
“It wasn’t the prettiest win but we are glad to get it and happy for our seniors to get that “W” tonight and we are going to enjoy it,” Shellabarger concluded.
Box Scores:
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
MV 08 … 09 … 11 … 08 – 36
FM 18 … 08 … 13 … 07 – 46
INDIVIDUAL SCORING:
MV – Alison Byram 6, Leah Scholl 3, Taylor Stachler 8, Mattie Hiestand 19 – 36
FM – Chloe McGlinch 20, Stella Shellabarger 5, Lillie Shellabarger 4, Alivia Sease 17, Jaliyah Nichols 10 – 46
