Girls basketball: Forreston tops Newman for third, Oregon downs host Marcos for fifth at Polo Christmas Classic

POLO – With impending weather on Thursday, the final day of the Polo Christmas Classic was held Wednesday evening with a quadruple-header for the championship, third-, fifth- and seventh-place games.

River Ridge/Scales Mound took the title with a 61-37 win over Pecatonica, rallying from a 14-7 deficit through one quarter and outscoring the Indians 19-6 in the third quarter and 19-4 in the fourth.

Forreston topped Newman 43-33 for third place, while Oregon downed Polo 46-31 for fifth.

West Carroll defeated Milledgeville 33-28 for seventh place, as the Thunder outscored the Missiles 21-9 in the second and third quarters, then held off a 14-6 fourth-quarter run. Karissa Andrews hit three 3-pointers and scored 11 points for West Carroll, and Kendal Asay added nine points.

Olivia Schurman, who was named to the all-tournament team, hit three 3s and finished with 15 points for Milledgeville, while Lily Smith added eight.

Third-place game

Forreston 43, Newman 33

The Comets rallied every time they fell behind, but they couldn’t finish off the comeback against the Cardinals.

Newman (3-12) trailed by 12 early in the second quarter, but used a 14-4 run to get back within 21-19 with 1:54 left in the first half. Jess Johns had nine points and three assists in the surge, which closed with her kick-out pass to Lucy Oetting for a 3-pointer and Johns’ post basket and fast-break layup.

“We didn’t expect to be playing for third place, so I think having those two wins [Saturday] made us a little more aggressive and made us want it more, and I think that played a big part in it,” Johns said. “We moved the ball well, and getting through their press was the biggest part. With them having two girls in the backcourt, it left us a few openings, and we just tried to find that open girl and get her to shoot.”

Back-to-back baskets by Ericka Alexander put Forreston ahead 25-19 at the break, then Oetting’s drive to the basket and Johns’ putback made it 25-23 a minute and a half into the third quarter. The teams traded baskets, with Rylee Broshous’ three-point play making it 30-25 before Madison Duhon’s putback cut it to 30-27 with 7:13 remaining.

Duhon’s bucket off a loose ball was the only basket for either team in a 4:18 stretch through the middle of the fourth quarter, before Johns hit two free throws to get Newman within 34-31 with 2:05 to play.

But the Cardinals ratcheted up the pressure on defense and closed the game with a 9-2 run, and didn’t allow a field goal for the final 4:43.

“I think we stopped a lot of their inside shots, and didn’t let them have open shots outside either. We made them keep moving the ball instead of looking to shoot,” senior guard Brooke Boettner said. “I think we caused a lot of turnovers by making them move a lot quicker than they’re used to.”

Forreston forced 28 turnovers in the game, and nabbed 21 steals, led by Boettner’s eight; she also had team highs of 11 points and four assists. The Cardinals also ran their offense well, as they assisted on six of their seven second-half field goals and used sharp half-court passing and the transition game to get easy looks inside.

“I think we had a lot more fast breaks at the end, just really pushed ourselves to get out and get going, to make some easy baskets,” Boettner said.

Broshous scored nine of her 10 points in the second half, and she also had three steals and two assists. Jenna Greenfield had seven points and seven rebounds, Keeli Larson added six points and four rebounds, and Hailey Greenfield chipped in five points, nine rebounds, three steals and two assists for Forreston. Alexander scored four points and nabbed three steals. The two Greenfields were named to the all-tournament team.

“It’s always our goal with our defense to speed teams up and force turnovers,” Forreston coach Brian Rahn said. “We play a couple of different versions of the old UNLV amoeba defense, and we want to try and make them play at our pace – and if we get some points that way, that’s great for us because half-court offense sometimes is a struggle for us. Sometimes us speeding it up makes ourselves speed up on offense, so we’ve got to take a step back, and we did that at the end tonight. It’s just a matter of continuing to learn and get better at that.”

Johns was also an all-tournament pick, and led the Comets in four stat categories, finishing with a double-double of 15 points and 19 rebounds, while also dishing four assists and swiping three steals. Duhon scored all eight of her points in the second half, while Oetting added five points, eight rebounds and three steals. Pyper TerBush had three points, three rebounds, two steals and two blocks, and Amiya Rodriguez chipped in two points, three rebounds and two assists for Newman, which forced 21 Forreston turnovers thanks to a new defensive approach.

“Tonight, we started playing man-to-man instead of zone defense, which we haven’t done … well, ever,” Johns said. “So it was our first night working that out, and I don’t know if it was good or bad, but it was a change, and we’ll keep working on it.”

Fifth-place game

Oregon 46, Polo 31

The Hawks got their transition game going to break open a close game through the opening quarter in Polo.

Hadley Lutz hit a 3-pointer following Liz Mois’ putback early in the second quarter, but the Marcos got a 3 from Carlee Grobe and a basket from Karlea Frey to get back within 18-16. After Mois scored on a in-bounds play and a runout, Lutz went coast to coast off her own steal for a 24-16 Oregon lead; Polo again answered with a pull-up jumper and a 3 from Courtney Grobe on consecutive possessions to make it a 24-21 game at halftime.

The teams traded baskets through the third quarter, but the Hawks scored the final seven points on another Lutz coast-to-coast fast break, then an Ella Dannhorn 3 and a Mois basket inside.

Mois opened the fourth quarter with another interior bucket, then hit two free throws before Ava Hackman had a pair of baskets on pretty feeds from Mariah Drake and Teagan Champley in the high post for a 43-29 Oregon lead with 2:31 remaining.

“We like passing it around and getting everybody involved. It helps everybody everybody have a good day, and it works well for us,” Lutz said.

“Getting the ball inside and scoring in there, it got our momentum rolling really well,” Mois added. “Hadley and I and a lot of others work really well together, and we like to pass the ball. Some of those full-court passes, we just have fun with it.”

Oregon forced 14 of Polo’s 23 turnovers in the second half, and also out-rebounded the Marcos 38-27.

“From the last time we played them, we kind of worked off of that to see how they played, and we tried to get out to the perimeter and see if we could get more steals this time,” Lutz said. “Those fast breaks are pretty important. Once we get going a lot in transition, it just helps build everybody’s confidence and makes us play at a better pace.”

“Communication was the key,” Mois said. “The first half of the game, it was a little slow on our part, but when we came out of halftime, we talked a lot better about screens, who was taking who, when we were switching on the screens. That was really beneficial.”

Lutz and Mois led the Hawks with 15 points each; Mois also grabbed a team-high nine rebounds, while Lutz stuffed the stat sheet with six rebounds, five assists, five steals and a block while earning all-tournament honors. Dannhorn added eight points, five rebounds, three steals and a block, and Drake chipped in four rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Carlee and Courtney Grobe both scored seven points for Polo, with Courtney dishing a pair of assists and earning an all-tournament selection. Annalise Stamm had five points and three rebounds, Bekah Zeigler finished with four points and five rebounds, and Frey also scored four points. Madison Glawe pulled down a team-high seven rebounds to go with two assists and two steals.

“We just couldn’t get anything going, but I give the girls credit. We were short-handed the last two nights; we’re missing three starters to injury and sickness. The girls I had tonight busted their butts, and that’s all I can ask for as a coach,” Polo coach Jason Grobe said.

“We just have to get some confidence. We have to have the girls get the confidence to take the outside shot; some of them still don’t want to take the shot unless they’re absolutely wide open, and we can’t do that at the varsity level. We’ve got to be able to get a shot with somebody up on us, and it’s a confidence thing. We just need to play with more confidence.”