WELDON SPRING • Francis Howell’s most impressive players can’t drive themselves to the games.
However, the underclassmen are showing they’ve got what it takes to help the Vikings motor their way to some wins on the hardwood.
Freshman Carly Harper scored a season-high 23 points and her classmate Rachel Fick netted 10 points and tallied nine rebounds to power host Francis Howell to a 56-46 win over Holt in a non-conference game on Tuesday.
The victory, the Vikings’ fourth in their past six games, improved their record to 10-14. Holt fell to 9-14.
“They do an excellent job,” Francis Howell coach Melanie Zerr said of her standout ninth graders. “They’re hard workers. They push themselves every day in practice and it shows on the court.”
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Harper certainly demonstrated against the Indians she’s been working on her game for some time. She showed tremendous poise, especially at the free-throw line, where she nailed 11 of her 12 attempts.
“When I took my first shot, I was, like, feeling it,” Harper said. “And my teammates realized that, so they passed me the ball. So they really contributed to my (success) tonight.”
The Vikings trailed 22-20 at the half. However, led by Harper, who had six points in the third quarter, and Fick, who had eight, they outscored the Indians 21-8 in the first eight minutes of the second half to take a 41-30 lead and control of the game.
“I think our flow came out really well in the second half,” Zerr said. “It all depends on our chemistry, and we work our transition very well and it showed in that second half.”
The Indians were able to cut Howell’s lead down to 44-40 early in the fourth quarter after a 10-3 run sparked by Madi Peyton and Kami Taouil. However, the Vikings nailed 11-of-12 free throws in the fourth quarter to pull away.
“We work on free throws quite a bit,” said Zerr, whose team made 23-of-26 in the contest. “The other night, we went 14-of-14. We have some good nights on our free throws and other nights we aren’t so good. We just need to get a little more consistent.”
Howell also got good contributions from freshmen Danielle Berry and Morgan Wilborn and sophomore Kristen Hemmersmeier.
Holt, like Howell, was also led by underclassmen in the game. Freshman Mel Taouil led the Indians with 14 points and her classmate Madi Peyton had 13, including a trio of 3-pointers.
“It was kind of freshmen vs. freshmen tonight,” Holt coach Sandy Moore said. “My girls are playing hard, four quarters of ball. A month ago, we weren’t doing that. We played hard the entire game. We still made some silly mistakes and stuff, but we still played hard and that’s all you can ask.”
The Vikings started the game well, easing to a 6-2 lead after three minutes of play. The Indians responded with a 9-0 run the next five minutes of play, as they led 11-6 at the end of one quarter.
The majority of the second quarter was dominated by Francis Howell and, more specifically, Harper. The guard/forward scored seven of her 11 first-half points in the first five minutes, 20 seconds of the second quarter to put the Vikings up 17-15.
Holt, sparked by five quick points from Peyton, closed the first half on a 7-3 run to take a 22-20 lead at intermission. However, the Howell freshmen took charge the rest of the way.
“I think since Carly was hitting her shots outside that they wanted to guard her more heavily and then the middle opened up,” Fick said.