Mitchell Christian tops Mount Vernon

The Mitchell Christian girls’ basketball team outscored Mount Vernon 16-0 in the second quarter on Monday night. The Eagles won the game, which was played at Mitchell Christian School, 44-36.

Mitchell Christian improved its record to 8-11, while Mount Vernon finished the regular season off at 0-20.

“It wasn’t always clean, but it was a good win for us,” Eagles head coach Jackie Van Laecken said.

Mount Vernon led through almost the entire first quarter, despite committing nine fouls, compared to Mitchell Christian’s three, in the first eight minutes.

“We came out a little bit nervous in the first quarter,” Van Laecken said. “Mount Vernon tends to do that do to us.”

Van Laecken knew her squad could not overlook Mount Vernon, which has a winless record.

“They are playing better basketball and they are very sound fundamentally,” Van Laecken said.

The first lead the Eagles had came with 10 seconds left in the first quarter, when Becca Glanzer hit a layup to put Mitchell Christian up 13-12.

Glanzer finished the night with 11 points.

Mitchell Christian scored the last four points of the opening quarter and scored the last 20 points of the half to head into the locker rooms leading 29-12.

“We wanted to really focus on getting the press working for us,” Van Laecken said. “They did a really good job with it.”

Alexa Van Laecken saw a lot of success with the pressure defense, as she finished the night with seven steals. She scored nine points for the Eagles.

Khiree Held recorded nine of the team’s 33 rebounds.

Mount Vernon head coach Brent Olson sensed trouble early on, even with the lead in the first quarter, because of the team’s early foul trouble.

“We got off to a rocky start with the foul trouble,” Olson said. “Getting them to the foul line was exactly what we didn’t want to do.”

Olson was happy with how his team finished, scoring 18 points in the final quarter to double the teams point total on the night.

“This is a team that could have given up,” Olson said. “They’ve improved every day, probably not as much as they would have wished, but it’s been a noticeable difference.”

Olson mentioned that Mitchell Christian was able to control the tempo of the game, which led to the Eagles’ success.

Mount Vernon was led in scoring by Ashlee Dikoff and Mikayla Weiss, who each had nine points. Dikoff also led the team in rebounds with eight.

The Mitchell Christian girls play their last regular-season game tonight, as part of a boys and girls doubleheader against Bridgewater-Emery at Mitchell Christian School, starting at 6:30 p.m.

MITCHELL CHRISTIAN 44,

MOUNT VERNON 36

Mitchell Christian (8-11)

Alexa Van Laecken 4 1-2 9, Becca Glanzer 5 0-1 11, Katelyn Held 4 1-2 9, Brittany Zoss 3 2-2 8, Khiree Held 3 0-0 6, Ellie Bleeker 0 0-0 0, Ashley Glanzer 0 1-5 1, Lindsay Thompson 0 0-0 0, Taylor Krall 0 0-0 0, Abbie Reynen 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 5-12 44.

Mount Vernon (0-20)

Maci McGhee 2 0-0 5, Ashlee Dikoff 4 1-2 9, Haley Hinker 0 0-0 0, Hannah Parsons 2 1-3 5, Haley Delancey 1 0-0 2, Mikayla Weiss 4 1-1 9, Erin Denning 2 0-0 6, Danielle Stoltz 0 0-0 0, Jasmin Waite 0 0-0 0, Sierra Hardie 0 0-0 0, Abby Mahaffey 0 0-0 0, Jenna Jones 0 0-0 0, Cynthia Antaya 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 3-6 36.

MC 13 29 36 44

MV 12 12 18 36

3-point goals: MC 1 (Glanzer), MV 3 (Denning 2, McGhee). Rebounds: MC 33 (Khiree Held 9, Katelyn Held 6, Glanzer 6), MV 26. Total Fouls: MC 10, MV 13. Fouled Out: Hinker (MV). Technical Fouls: None.

JV game: Mount Vernon 20-14.

Tags: mitchell christian, sports, basketball, updates