Menu
Freshman steps up for Eagle girls
UNIONTOWN -- Uniontown freshman Shalina Harper had a breakout performance in Monday night's 62-29 rout of Crest in Three Rivers League play at West Bourbon Elementary School. Harper, one of the youngest players on a veteran-laden squad, scored 11 points while tallying 4 steals, 2 assists and a rebound.
"I'm enjoying getting the opportunity for her to have some playing time," Miller said. "I knew that Crest would come out and play us a little bit of zone -- and she is definitely a shooter from the outside. So I knew she would get some opportunities, and she took advantage of it. Defensively, she did a nice job as well."
Miller said with Monday night's increase in playing time, he is preparing Harper to step into the role of Uniontown's starting shooting guard next season. Harper ran the floor well in transition and made 3 of 4 free throws during a 21-3 Eagle blitz to close out the first half. Uniontown (4-3 TRL, 8-9 overall) led 35-11 at halftime.
As part of her big night, Harper drilled two 3-pointers.
"She's had some kind of frustrating games as of late where her playing time has kind of been reduced, just because of rotation or experience, or whatever -- and I thought maybe this would be a good game, knowing that they play a zone, that she'd be able to go out and build some confidence to finish out the season," Miller said
Miller said Harper is steadily improving her basketball skills through hard work in the gym.
"She is a gym rat," Miller said. "We'll wrap up practice at 5:30 or 6 (p.m.), and she'll usually stay at least another 30 to 40 minutes shooting and just working on her individual game. She's one of those kids if she's not in the gym shooting, she's shooting out at the barn behind the house. She's got a really good attitude and she's a big team player. She knows the bigger overall picture and she wants to do what's best for her team."
Senior Emily Shinn followed up her big performance against Chetopa last week with 15 points, 4 rebounds and a steal. Mandie Ridge supplied 7 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal. Guard Lakyn Coyan finished with 9 points.
"Lakyn has developed some confidence in her mid-range jumper, and she's pretty good with her shot selection at that position," Miller said.
Crest's girls fell to 2-5, 3-12 with the loss. It was Uniontown's fourth straight home victory.
A sluggish start to the game proved costly for Uniontown's boys as they lost to Crest 70-62. Trailing 44-31 entering the third quarter, The Eagles (3-4, 7-10) opened the second half on a 9-2 run, capped by senior Chase Gleason's 3-poimter from the right corner, to slice the deficit to 46-40 with 3:58 remaining in the third quarter.
In previous games, Eagles head coach Jeremy Neville has lamented about his team coming out flat to open up the second half.
"We've found ways to be inconsistent in a lot of games this year," Neville said. "Sometimes it's early in a game, and sometimes it's coming out of halftime. It's something as coaches we've worked very hard to fix, but we haven't figured it out yet. We didn't change any X and O's coming out of halftime. The only thing we did differently was, we talked about our effort and our energy, and actually competing. And we did that in the second half.
Neville left his team on the floor during halftime, as they ran passing and layup drills. Neville said at some point, he would like to see four quarters of consistent play from his squad.
"I think the only thing we can do is demand that every rep in practice, that they're focusing, that they're going as hard as they can," he said. "We've tried to do that from day one. But it's a process and we just haven't got the results we want."
With 2:18 remaining in the fourth quarter, forward Joseph Duffey corralled an offensive rebound and scored underneath the basket, cutting the deficit to 59-56. However, the Eagles went cold from the field and were unable to get defensive stops, as the Lancers pulled away.
Crest (4-3, 7-9) went 21 of 22 from the charity stripe on the night as the Lancers broke a four-game losing streak.
Point guard Skyler Riley finished the night with 18 points, center Tyler Johns added 12 points and Duffey finished with 10.
"We had several guys play well offensively," Neville said. "This was probably one of our better games offensively, but defensively we were just so poor in the first half, it hurt us. I though Tyler Johns played well inside. Our guards really moved the ball well on the perimeter, and Skyler was the benefactor on offense."
Uniontown's teams play a TRL doubleheader at Altoona-Midway tonight. Neither the boys' or girls' teams at Midway have a league victory this season. The Jets' girls' squad has lost 21 straight league games while the boys have dropped 38 consecutive TRL contests dating back to the 2008-09 season.
Girls
CREST: Golden 3 3-7 9, Godderz 2 4-6 8, Hammond 2 2-4 6, rest of team 3 0-4 6. TOTALS: 10 9-21 29
UNIONTOWN: E.Shinn 6 3-4 15, Herring 1 0-0 2, Travis 0 0-0 0, Harper 3 3-4 11, H.Shinn 0 0-0 0, Stokes 1 2-2 4, Coyan 4 1-1 9, Wilkinson 0 0-0 0 Farra 2 0-1 4, Hathaway 0 0-0 0, Robinson 7 0-0 14, Ridge 1 1-4 3. TOTALS: 25 10-16 62.
Crest......................... 6 5 9 9 -- 29
Uniontown.............. 10 25 19 8 -- 62
Three-point field goals: Crest none, Uniontown 2 (Harper 2).
Total fouls: Crest 16, Uniontown 17. Fouled out: None.
Boys
CREST: Frazell 5 8-8 21, Green 1 5-6 8, Godderz 2 0-0 4, Stephens 2 2-2 7, Strickler 0 0-0 0, Berry 0 0-0 0, Brallier 0 0-0 0, Ellis 7 5-5 21, Miller 0 0-0 0, Ramsey 1 0-0 2, Davis 3 1-1 7. TOTALS: 21 21-22 70.
UNIONTOWN: Riley 6 3-4 18, Miller 0 0-0 0, Gleason 2 3-3 9, Ja.Duffey 4 0-0 10, Jo.Duffey 5 0-0 10, Johns 2 8-11 12, Wood 0 2-4 2, Kuns 0 0-0 0, Elder 0 0-0 0, Coyan 0 0-0 0, Sutterby 0 0-0 0, Bradbury 0 3-4 3. TOTALS: 19 19-26 62.
Crest......................... 20 24 10 16 -- 70
Uniontown............. 15 16 15 16 -- 62
Three-point field goals: Crest 7 (Frazell 3, Ellis 2, Green, Godderz), Uniontown 5 (Riley 3, Gleason 2).