By Travis Smola
Vicksburg’s varsity girls’ basketball team seems to be on a mission to silence any doubts about the group after graduating two key all-state athletes last season.
The team started the season with a perfect 6-0 record, and except for the Paw Paw and Stevensville Lakeshore contests, the games haven’t been close. The Bulldogs went on the road and systematically dismantled the Wildcats in a 62-28 rout. Despite it being an extremely physical contest, the girls never trailed once.
“This group of seniors, five of them have been up since they were freshmen. They’ve never lost back-to-back games; that right there is their 64th career win,” Head Coach Tim Kirby said. “We had girls that graduated last year who got a lot of the accolades and a lot of the talk. But this is the group that’s been under the hood for three years. It’s our engine that goes.”
That engine ran on all cylinders as the girls posted a 25-8 first-quarter lead. Makayla Allen accounted for 13 of those first-quarter points. She ultimately drained five three-pointers and two free throws for 17 total points. By halftime, Vicksburg had a gargantuan 41-14 lead. It helped that the Bulldog defense was smothering for the entire contest.
“Our zone is pretty good. We talked about being active and aggressive in our zone,” Kirby said. “We don’t want to just sit with our hands in the air, that’s not what we’re all about. We get some steals in, get some deflections out of it, that gets us going because we really want to run.”
Vicksburg went on plenty of runs during the contest. The Wildcats had no answer for Scarlett Hosner in the contest. She had three steals that converted into points and scored from everywhere on the floor, racking up a team-leading 19 points. Kendra Cooley and Hannah DeVries also put on strong showings, each racking 10 points in the contest. Rounding out scoring for the Bulldogs were Lainey Wilson, Madison Cooley, and Emily Zemitans, who each added a point.
“I’m pleased with my girls, pleased with the way we played defense and shared the ball,” Kirby said. “It was pretty even scoring for us, it’s not one person that does it, so we’re happy about that.”
The Bulldogs’ two close contests were a 66-65 nailbiter over Paw Paw and a narrow 44-40 victory over Stevensville Lakeshore. In the last contest before the winter break, the girls took down Plainwell 45-18.
