KINDERHOOK–It wasn’t as if the Ichabod Crane girls basketball team had been playing that badly coming into last Friday’s home game against Schalmont. In fact three days before that game the Riders fell to Voorheesville by just two, but on Friday everything came together against the one-loss Sabres as ICC trounced the visitors by 20 points.
Ashley Haywood, a freshman point guard, poured in a game-high 21 points, while sophomore guard Jaycee Volkmann added 11. Despite not getting into the scoring column another freshman, Paige Niemeyer, impacted the game to the tune of eight rebounds and three blocked shots.
Both offenses got off to a slow start, as the Riders held a 5-2 lead on a Haywood triple and a Reychel Webster jump shot five minutes into the game. Haywood helped the Riders to extend that lead as the quarter came to a close by attacking the hoop, making the bucket and drawing a foul. Haywood would finish a perfect eight of eight from the free throw line in the game. A late Schalmont free throw with under 10 seconds left in the quarter gave them another point, but they trailed 15-3.
The second quarter saw ICC put up even more than the 15 points they had in the first quarter. After not scoring in the first, Volkmann, a dangerous long-range shooter, buried back-to-back three pointers on her way to seven points in the quarter. Without forcing her own offense Haywood added six more to her team’s total, as the Riders pushed their lead to 19 heading to halftime.
The third quarter was another defensive gem for ICC, holding the Sabres to just a pair of shots from beyond the arc and one fast-break hoop, while their own offense kept humming along. Mikela Freeman started off the third with the Riders’ first two buckets. A late three by Danielle Ooms helped to keep the Riders up by 14 heading to the fourth.
The Riders scored 6 of the final quarter’s first 8 points before Schalmont went on a 10-2 run to end the game that was never in question and give ICC their first Colonial Council win of the season. The Riders were slated to return to the court Thursday and Friday for a non-league tournament.
Freeman finished with six points helping the Haywood-Volkmann guard duo, while Webster and Brooke Morgan each added three apiece. Ooms added three and both Katie Grace and Emily Van Leuven had two in the win.