Girls basketball: Camryn Driscoll, Princeton shoot past Hall into first place in TRAC East

First place in the Three Rivers East was up for grabs Thursday night, and the Princeton Tigresses grabbed it.

The Tigresses broke open a close game early, leading 7-5, by outscoring Hall 21-2 the rest of the first half to go up 34-10 at the half on the way to a 57-38 win over the rival Red Devils.

With the win, the Tigresses moved into first place at 5-1 with the Red Devils slipping into second at 5-2, both losses at the hands of Princeton. Bureau Valley is third at 5-3.

“We knew it was going to be tough, but we really want that first place in the conference, so we’re willing to work hard to get it,” PHS senior captain Miyah Fox said. “We worked really hard in practice. Watched a lot of film. We knew what we had to do to execute and shut down that [Ella] Sterling girl, and I feel like we did a really good job tonight.”

PHS coach Tiffany Gonigam knew her players understood what was at stake.

“It was a really big game. I tried not to put a ton of pressure on,” she said. “You show the records. [But] the kids know. They know where each of the teams stand in the conference. This was a real important one to get. We’ll have to go out and win a few more.

“We’ve got Bureau Valley, Kewanee, Newman and Mendota still, and there’s no easy games. But I think this game was really telling, and I think the girls put a lot of things together and really just gave an incredible amount of effort. It was amazing to see the amount of hustle plays we had tonight.”

Sophomore sharpshooter Camryn Driscoll had the hot hand for the Tigresses early, sinking three 3-pointers in the first half and two more in the second to finish with a game-high 23 points.

She hit a pair of her trademark rainbow 3s to start the second half to give the Tigresses a 40-12 lead.

“She’s awesome. We love Cam,” Fox said. “We just give her the ball every time, and she’ll make ‘em.”

The Red Devils used an 8-0 run with two buckets in the post by Ella Sterling, a steal and layup by Charlie Pellegrini and a 3-pointer by McKenna Christiansen to draw within 40-20.

A putback by Mikayla Hecht put the Tigresses back up by 26, settling for a 47-23 lead at quarter’s end.

“The execution was phenomenal. They bought in to the solutions we had. ‘Hey, this is what hurt us the last time we played Hall,’” Gonigam said. “And wow. You figure first half, Hall scored 10 points, and much of what we were trying to do was on the defensive end. That was just good execution by them. It starts with their heart and their attitude and hustle.”

Much of the Tigresses’ focus was on Hall’s center Sterling, who scored eight points.

“We’re an undersized team. There’s no doubt about that in a lot of the games we play and she’s been really hot lately,” Gonigam said. “I’ve been seeing in the box scores, double digits quite a few times. When you’re looking what you’ve got to stop you start with her.”

Hall coach TJ Orlandi said it was a frustrating loss for the Red Devils.

“We didn’t execute the things we talked about in practice, and then once things started going sideways a little bit, you just saw us mentally defeated and couldn’t get back to where they needed to be,” he said.

“Through last week, I thought we were playing better and getting to the place where we wanted to be at. We had the layoff, but so did they. Everybody was playing the same game. We all lost days last week. I just feel once we hit some adversity, we didn’t respond to it and dug ourselves way too big of a hole.”

Orlandi said that hole will be hard to get out of in the conference race with the Tigresses holding a half-game lead and the tie-breaker, having swept both games.

“Now you try to win every game and get ready for regionals,” he said. “Princeton’s a team that we’ll probably be slotted with in our sub-sectionals so we’ll probably see them a third time. That’s what I was trying to stress in the second half was do things we wanted to do in the first half because it’s a team we might see again. Things you’ll have to execute should that happen.”

Keighley Davis added 16 points for PHS.

Christiansen led Hall with 11 points while Charlie Pellegrini and Sterling added eight each.

After hosting Orion in a crossover game at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, the Tigresses will travel to Bureau Valley for another key TRAC East clash at the Storm Cellar.

Princeton won the F/S game 21-19. Addy Dever had six points. Ava Delphi led Hall with five.

A look at girls basketball standings