No. 3-ranked Lansing Catholic girls basketball overcomes slow start at Ionia to stay undefeated
IONIA — Kacee Reid knows her Division 2 No. 3-ranked Lansing Catholic girls basketball team will get its opponent's best effort every game.
That’s the price of being undefeated more than halfway through the regular season.
The Cougars were tied 9-9 with Ionia after the first quarter of Friday’s game but responded in the second quarter — taking an 11-point lead into halftime —before pulling away for a 66-31 win over the Bulldogs.
Lansing Catholic moves to 12-0, including 5-0 in the CAAC White. While the Cougars put up points in the final three quarters, Reid was focused on her team's slow start in the first.
“It definitely took us a whole half to settle into the game,” Reid said. “Ionia is a hard-working, well-coached team and they were definitely ready for us. It’s hard to come here and play well for us a lot of times. It’s a tough place with their crowd. I was proud of my girls. We settled in and started playing the basketball that got us to this point. We were lucky to pull it together in the second half.”
Sophomore point guard Anna Richards led Lansing Catholic with 16 points.
“We really wanted to focus on getting the stops (on defense) and making sure everyone knows we’re not just an offensive team — we can shoot but we can also play defense,” Richards said. “That’s something that’s really important to us this year.”
Ionia (6-4, 2-2) was led by Brynn Reams, who had 15 points.
“Brynn’s always competitive every single game,” said Ionia coach Laurie Hoppough. “She missed some shots and she got fouled a lot, but we want to get (the ball) into her and they were collapsing on her. We just couldn’t get the outside look.”
Hoppough said Lansing Catholic’s zone defense after the first quarter presented problems for her team.
“We hung in with them until they threw their 1-3-1 (defense) at us,” Hoppough said. “We’re not at that level yet where we know how to be offensively sound against a 1-3-1. We worked on it but it’s just something we have to get better at.”
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— Contact reporter Evan Sasiela at esasiela@sentinel-standard.com. Follow him on Twitter @SalsaEvan.
This article originally appeared on Ionia Sentinel-Standard: Lansing Catholic girls basketball tops Ionia to stay perfect
