CEDARVILLE — Yellow Springs coach Tim Minnich knew that Cedarville had three scorers that he had to stop. And so he set up the Bulldogs’ defense with the intent of shutting down, or at least limiting, the scoring of Cedarville’s three leading scorers — Ciara Horney (11.4 points per game), Elly Coe (10.4 ppg) and Luisa Christian (9.5) — and dared the rest of the Indians’ lineup to score.
And so freshman Anna Shepherd did just that.
Shepherd had hit one 3-pointer all season prior to draining five in Wednesday’s 49-25 girls varsity basketball shocker over Yellow Springs, Jan. 22 at Cedarville High.
“We have a tough, gritty group, and we’ve had our ups and our downs this season. But I know that these kids are gonna play hard together, and figure out a way to win,” Indians coach Josh Mason said. “Yeah, at times this was maybe one of the ugliest things I’d ever experienced, but we had some great shots tumbling in from Anna Shepherd tonight, and that was huge.”
Yellow Springs may have limited Harney to four points, but Coe finished with a game-high 20 and four other Cedarville players combined for 14 points in the win. Cedarville is now 8-7 on the season.
In all, Cedarville shooters hit on 10-of-30 3-pointers (33 percent).
For the first time in Minnich’s AAU and high school coaching career, his team did not convert a single three-point shot (0-for 11).
“Tim does a great job with his kids. He does a great job of taking away what you are best at, so we knew coming in that he was going to do what he could to shut down our top scoring threats tonight, that’s how he rolls,” Mason said. “Angie Smith is one of the best players in this area, so this is a big win for our kids, and I’m happy for them.”
Smith is leading the Metro Buckeye Conference in scoring with 21.9 points per game, and led the Bulldogs (11-4) with 19 points in Wednesday night’s loss.
Yellow Springs’ Minnich thinks his team might’ve been a tad rusty, and a bit over-confident as well.
“We hadn’t played in a week, and I think that might’ve hurt us a bit,” he said. “We stuck to our game plan. We went man-to-man on their top three, and played a two-man zone on the rest. … We were right with them, and ahead at 10-9 with two minutes left in the first half, then they started hitting their threes, and that was it.
“I’ll take this loss. It’s a good punch in the mouth, and maybe will put us in our place where we belong,” Minnich said. “It’s a good loss for us, and we’ll be back ready to play tomorrow.”
Yellow Springs won’t have to worry about being rusty for its next contest. The Bulldogs get back into Metro Buckeye Conference play Thursday night (Jan. 23) when they’ll host Middletown Christian for a 7 p.m. game.
Cedarville heads back into Ohio Heritage Conference play, but they have a few days until their next game, a Saturday 12:30 p.m. start at home against South Charleston Southeastern.
