Madelyn Poe
During the course of Columbus East’s four-game losing streak, the Olympians had struggled shooting the basketball, especially from the perimiter.
That certainly was not the case on Saturday. East knocked down 12 of 18 from 3-point range and were never threatened in rolling to a 65-31 Hoosier Hills Conference win against New Albany.
“Just absolutely insane,” East coach Kaitlyn Phillips said. “We haven’t shot the ball that well all season, and I told the girls this is a direct correlation of the last week or so of practice that we’ve had, just competing and getting after each other a little bit. That showed today in all the ways we needed to see going into these last few weeks of our season.”
The Olympians (5-13, 2-3) hit eight of their first 10 3s and were 8 of 11 in the first half. Madelyn Poe went 4 of 5 from long range on her way to a game-high 21 points.
“I think that definitely gives us a lot of confidence,” Poe said. “If other people see the ball going in the basket, or you see it for yourself, then it continues to give the team momentum, and our shots continue to fall, which leads to winning.”
“I think we shot the ball extremely well,” Kimberly Carothers added. “After a couple of us hit one, it just gave the momentum to the rest of us, and I think we did a pretty good job overall as a team.”
Kimberly Carothers
Carothers came off the bench to hit 4 of 6 3-pointers to score a career-high 12 points. She saw extended minutes in the absence of starting post player Caroline Frost, who was sick.
“I felt like I needed to step up, especially with Frost being gone,” Carothers said. “I really needed to take advantage of the playing time I got because I haven’t really been getting as much. I think I’m really getting my confidence back.”
Brelyn Pool and Lola Watkins combined to fo 3 of 4 from long range off the bench.
“Caroline is at home sick, and Jenna has been sick all week and missed 2 1/2 days of school, so her minutes were pretty light today,” Phillips said. “So we had a lot of girls on the bench step up and play really solid minutes. Kimberly and Brelyn and even Lola in the second half had good minutes, so we got what we needed out of our core kids like we normally do, and then everyone else really stepped up. It was a huge team effort today.”
Poe hit back-to-back 3s to begin the game, and East built an 18-8 lead after one quarter. The Olympians extended the margin to 34-14 at halftime and 53-23 after three quarters.
East’s biggest lead came at 65-29, which triggered a running clock for the game’s final 1 minute, 8 seconds.
“I feel like sometimes, we have a slow start, but if we can just come out fast like we did today and get some momentum, I think it can carry along to the rest of the game like it did,” Poe said. “We just kept going and never let off the gas. I think we all needed it, especially before sectional coming up here in a few weeks. It was a good win our team needed, and hopefully, we can just continue to build off of it.”
The win was the the Olympians’ first in 30 days, since an overtime win at Columbus Noth on Dec. 14.
“It’s been a minute,” Phillips said. “We needed this momentum, especially going into Jennings County (Thursday) and Madison on Saturday. We have two tough opponents coming up, but right now, we’re still in our, trust-the-process mindset and knowing that we’re going to compete and get better these last four games that we have and go into sectional the best that we’ve been playing so far.”
Columbus East 65, New Albany 31
New Albany;8;6;9;8;—;31
Columbus East;18;16;18;13;—;65
New Albany (3-16, 0-4): Tori Bailey 1 0-0 2, Maizy Smith 5 0-0 10, Reese Stiles 2 0-0 4, Sophia Corley 2 0-0 4, Emily Spainhour 5 0-0 11, Rihanna Marshall 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 0-0 31.
Columbus East (5-13, 2-3): Kenzi Cheek 2 1-3 5, Ella Anthis 0 0-0 0, Jenna Guse 1 0-0 3, Kimberly Carothers 4 0-0 12, Victoria Cuhadar 2 0-0 4, Lola Watkins 2 0-0 5, Messiah Trapp 1 1-2 3, Madelyn Poe 8 1-1 21, Lucy Ross 0 0-0 0, Savanna Sullivan 2 2-3 6, Brelyn Pool 2 0-0 6. Totals: 24 5-9 65.
3-point goals: New Albany 1 (Spainhour); Columbus East 12 (Carothers 4, Poe 4, Pool 2, Guse, Watkins).
