East Mills drops third straight, F-M wins at home

Stanton edged East Mills 35-26 in a rugged, Corner Conference girls basketball slugfest Friday in Stanton.
Despite their offensive struggles, the Wolverines (3-3 overall, 1-2 in the conference) led 15-13 at the half before the Vikings went on to out-score them 22-11 in the second half.
Brooklyn Silva scored 10 points to lead Stanton.

Fremont-Mills 39,
East Atchison 24
Fremont-Mills overcame its own rough shooting night with a brilliant defensive effort in a 39-24 win over East Atchison Friday.
The Knights (3-1 overall, 2-0 in the Corner Conference) shot 29.6 percent from the field – 16-of-54 – while holding the Wolves to a season-low in points.
Ellie Switzer led the Knights with 11 points. Izzy Weldon chipped in 10 points and Elle Thornton nine.

Fremont-Mills 38,
East Mills 37
Fremont-Mills and its pressure defense came up big in the Knights’ 38-37 win over East Mills in Corner Conference girls’ basketball last Tuesday.

The Knights pushed and prodded the Wolverines all over the court, forcing a season-high 24 turnovers and holding the Wolverines to just 31.6 (12-of-38) shooting in the win.

“They don’t ask how you win ‘em,” said Fremont-Mills coach Bret Weldon after the game. “It was pretty ugly. It was a defensive battle and that’s what we need to be able to do. We don’t have a lot of size so we have to make it kind of ugly and use our athleticism to our advantage and I think that’s what we did tonight.”

The Knights opened that game in a trapping full-court pressure that seemed to disorient East Mills. While the Wolverines scored the game’s first six points – mostly at the free throw line – Fremont-Mills closed the first half on a 5-0 run to take a 20-15 lead into the break.

“We wanted to put pressure on them and make them handle the ball,” Weldon said. “They made a good adjustment in the second and half and we didn’t get as many turnovers. But we still were able to control the game a little bit defensively. They’ve got some really good talented players and it makes it tough to play defense, so we had to stick with it and gang rebound.”

The Wolverines went over eight minutes without a bucket late into the first half into the third quarter as F-M clung to a 24-21 lead heading into the final frame.

In the fourth, the two teams traded leads five times until Teagan Ewalt’s free throw and then a reverse layup put the Knights ahead for good at 38-35 with 38 seconds to go.

East Mills coach Alexis Moreno called two timeouts in the final seconds to get potential game-tying shots from Natalie Goodman but both came up short. The Wolverines had one vinal shot after a missed Knight free throw with eight seconds left but that too was off.

Weldon thought his team’s late game work on offense, no defense was the difference.

“We had the ball late up one there and executed late in the shot clock and that was a big possession. We also got some decent looks against their zone. They’re very long so that makes it tough but we were able to hit enough shots at the end.”

Izzy Weldon had 13 points and three steals to lead the Knights.

“She handles the ball a lot so we ask her to do a lot managing the game,” Weldon said. “She did a really good job. We had a lot of girls step up and take a little pressure off.”

Ewalt chipped in 10 points and five rebounds.

Emily Williams had 12 points to lead East Mills but she was just 4-of-13 from the field. She did add 15 rebounds.

“I don’t know if we contained her,” Weldon said. “There’s not much you can do. She’s very talented, athletic and she understands the game. She’s a really good player and we tried to do whatever we could and hoped she missed.”

Woodbine 59,
East Mills 38  

Led by Charlie Pryor’s 18 points Woodbine downed East Mills 59-38 in a non-conference girls basketball tilt last Monday.

The Wolverines struggled to find their touch offensively, shooting a season-low 27.1 percent (13-of-48) and turnover the ball over 30 times.
Emily Williams led East Mills with eight points and nine rebounds.