Right from the opening tip on Dec. 12 at West Geauga High School's Wolvarena, the Wolverines Girls Basketball Team put immense pressure on their neighborhood rival, the Hawken Hawks.
Right from the opening tip on Dec. 12 at West Geauga High School’s Wolvarena, the Wolverines Girls Basketball Team put immense pressure on their neighborhood rival, the Hawken Hawks.
This relentless full court pressure led to the Wolverines causing a myriad of turnovers and scoring numerous points in transition.
In fact, utilizing this defensive tactic, the Wolverines took a commanding 32-14 lead heading into intermission.
After halftime, the Wolverines kept the defensive pressure dialed up for the final 16 minutes as they continued to play masterfully in a 54-28 triumph over the Hawks.
Afterwards, Wolverines Head Coach Brandon Stewart explained the Wolverines style of play.
“Our whole motto is press and run,” Coach Stewart said. “We know we’re not going to score in the half court as much, we want to score in transition. By that, we got to take some gambles, we got to press a lot, we have to make sure we’re finishing when we get those opportunities.”
Stewart continued: “Everything we do is kind of in attack mode, and we create as much chaos as we can.”
Utilizing this style of play, Coach Stewart said that the Wolverines game plan against the Hawks was to be aggressive right away.
“We had to go in and be aggressive early and we attacked early,” Coach Stewart said. “We finished the best that we have finished all season, probably, and it’s good to get a win. It was a great win on our home floor. We go to 2-1 in the conference, and it was kind of a bounce back game after the Lutheran West game where we came up a little short.”
On the court, leading the Wolverines in implementing the effective press and run strategy against the Hawks were juniors Faelynn Beckrest and Ava Borz.
Beckrest said that playing this style of basketball is fun and exciting. In particular, playing with such high pace necessitates the importance of getting everyone involved in the offensive flow of the game Beckrest explained.
Having the ball in her hands while racing up the court in transition, Beckrest looks to make quick sharp passes to her teammates on the break.
“We’re really good at pressuring and forcing teams to make turnovers,” Beckrest said. “So to the best of our ability we’re going to try to make teams turnover the ball and (get) easy layups.”
In helping the Wolverines score in transition against the Hawks, finding open teammates for easy baskets was a key focus for Beckrest when leading the break.
“I have to be able to make the passes to people that are open if I’m getting double teamed,” Beckrest said. “(Getting) everybody the ball so everybody scores and it’s just not a couple people scoring, (makes it) harder for the other team to play defense on us when multiple players are scoring.”
Against the Hawks, the Wolverines presented a balanced scoring attack as six players scored.
Junior Ava Borz, who had four points and a stellar defensive performance against the Hawks, said that the press and run strategy is a fun way to play basketball.
“(The press and run style), it’s fun, it’s quick, it’s just exciting, especially when our bench is loud and everyone is contributing, and everyone is moving, it’s just fun to play,” Borz said.
ln addition to being an enjoyable way to play basketball, Borz emphasized that the press and run also provides the Wolverines with a tactical on court advantage.
“Our team is pretty much full of guards, and we’re going to use that to our advantage when we can,” Borz said. “Everyone is really quick, and their smart, they no when to jump the ball, they know when the ball is coming, and they know how to sneak around. So, just doing that and using our stamina and our size, being guards, to our advantage has been helpful with us catching teams off guard and just playing quick.”
With their fast play, while utilizing the press and run against the Hawks, the Wolverines scored 16 points in the first quarter, and 16 in the second quarter to open up an 18 point lead. Leading the Wolverines in the first half with 13 points was Beckrest.
In the second half the Wolverines outscored the Hawks 24-14.
Leading the Wolverines offensively against the Hawks were Beckrest (18 points), Emersyn Semplak (12), Rachel Mason (10), Gabby Donofrio (8), Borz (4) and Aubrey Sens (2).
The Hawks were led offensively by Julia Scales (16 points), Tess Petersen (6), Maddie Mailer (4) and Jada Tomsich (2).
For the season the Wolverines’ Beckrest has scored in double figures in every game and has also led the Wolverines in scoring in each game.
With games against Edgewood (35 points), Lutheran West (29), Lake Catholic (25), Geneva (22), Hawken (18), Madison (15), and Orange (15), Beckrest is averaging 22.7 points per game this season.
The Wolverines return to the court on Dec. 16 when they travel to Perry to take on the Pirates. The Hawks will next face the Orange Lions, at Orange High School, also on Dec. 16.
