By Ted Waddell
ELDRED — January 9, 2004 – Despite a freezing rain falling outside the old gym on Monday night, the Eldred Lady Yellowjackets tossed off the chill to win their first game of the year by defeating the visiting Chester Lady Hambletonians, 55-28, in a non-league contest.
In a game that wasn’t really in question from the opening buzzer, Eldred (1-3) racked up a 31-8 halftime lead, as Lady Yellowjackets’ Coach Frank Kean kept subbing, re-subbing and re-subbing, giving his bench players lots of minutes. He staged swaps of four or five players at a time once the outcome of the contest seemed locked in the record books.
Speaking of benches, the Lady Yellowjackets had a stable of five subs, while Chester (1-7) had a lonely hoopster waiting in the wings.
Eldred had two players reach double digits in the scoring column. Senior guard Lauren Timan recorded a game-high 19 points and junior forward Jessica Cherry netted 17 points.
At Chester’s end of the court, Jasmine Florestal and Kristin Jung split high point honors with seven points apiece.
While Eldred went a perfect 7-of-7 at the free-throw line, Chester was only 5-of-19 (26 percent) from the charity stripe.
“We’re a young team,” Chester Coach Jim DiStefano said. “We don’t have the ability to put the ball in the basket . . . we’re just not strong enough.”
“Basically we’re playing with underclassmen,” he added. “Technically, we should be a JV program right now. It’s tough!”
Kean said that while his hoopsters played well in the first period, for the remainder of the game they got caught up in Chester’s “sloppy” style of play.
“We played their game after the first period, but we had a really good press,” he said. “We worked on the fundamentals over vacation and it’s starting to pay off.”
Looking ahead to the start of divisional competition, Kean said, “I think we’re coming along, but we’re getting there slower than I expected us to. It’s going to take time.”