By Rob Potter
JEFFERSONVILLE — December 15, 2000 – Transition baskets and excellent foul shooting enabled Sullivan West/Jeffersonville-Youngsville to build and maintain a comfortable lead versus Roscoe Monday night in the championship game of the J-Y Tip-Off Tournament.
The Lady Trojans prevailed by a final score of 51-34.
SW/J-Y (3–0) used pressure defense to slow down the Roscoe (3–2) offense and benefitted from that same defensive strategy when Roscoe turnovers and steals by the Lady Trojans became easy hoops. That was especially true in the first half, when SW/J-Y converted several transition baskets.
After taking a 14-7 lead at the end of the first quarter, SW/J-Y used those transition baskets to extend its lead in the second period.
A fast break lay-up by junior guard Erin Bose with 2:15 left until the halftime break gave the Lady Trojans their biggest lead of the half. Bose’s easy bucket made the score 26-12 in favor of SW/J-Y.
“Aileen Semenetz especially had a few nice passes on those breaks,” SW/J-Y coach Ron Bernhardt said. “On several of those occasions, she really threaded the needle and got the ball to the right person.”
The Lady Trojans maintained their lead into the second half despite the fact that Roscoe seemed to be shooting more accurately and into the flow of the game.
A big key for SW/J-Y was the free throw shooting in the contest. The Lady Trojans were a near-perfect 10 of 11 at the charity stripe in the first half — and 11 for 13 overall. But the Lady Blue Devils were only 11 of 22 from the line.
“We were not at our best tonight,” Roscoe coach Becky Ahart said of her team’s overall performance. “When your point guard picks up two fouls in the first quarter everybody else is off a bit. But Jeff did a nice job tonight.”
Although those fouls attributed to junior point guard Kelly Ahart in opening stanza didn’t help matters, the Lady Blue Devils had cold shooting spells during the contest. In the third quarter, for example, the team only netted three points.
“In the second half we settled down a bit,” Ahart said. “I’m not unhappy with how the team played tonight. But we do have some areas to improve upon and that’s what were going to do.”
Danielle Austin scored a team-high 15 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for the Lady Blue Devils. Crystal Evans added 13 points for Roscoe.
SW/J-Y, meanwhile, had three players reach double figures in the scorebook. Kristin Erlwein recorded 13 points, Christina Winski netted 12 points and Tiffany Hauser had 10 points.
Bernhardt noted he is happy that his rather young team — Erlwein is the only senior on the squad — has played well together and has yet to face defeat.
“Our quality of play coming from the bench isn’t what we’ve been used to the past four of five years,” he said. “But we are delighted to be 3-0. Getting off to a fast start helps, especially because of the tough league we’re in.”
Notes: Although SW/J-Y and Roscoe were able to play the tournament title game Monday evening, the consolation contest between Chapel Field and Liberty was not played due to scheduling conflicts and had not been rescheduled at press time… Following the title game, SW/J-Y’s Christina Winski was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player and teammate Shelisa Duquette was selected to the all-tournament team. Also named to the all-tournament team were Roscoe’s Austin and Kelly Ahart.