10 Best: Roland-Story vs. East Marshall
It was a battle of early-season undefeateds as 1-0 Roland-Story visited 1-0 East Marshall to play spoiler. Roland-Story was the better team from the tip as they got off to a fast start and never looked back. After one quarter…
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Continue ReadingIt was a battle of early-season undefeateds as 1-0 Roland-Story visited 1-0 East Marshall to play spoiler. Roland-Story was the better team from the tip as they got off to a fast start and never looked back. After one quarter the guests had a 12-4 advantage on the scoreboard and at the half it was a 20-point game. Roland-Story didn’t extend their lead much from the first half to the second half as they looked to mix in a few fresh faces and played bench players for a lot of the second half. They did with the game comfortably 65-35 and had a few good individual performances. Five takeaways from the game are below.
Roland-Story look like contenders
Roland-Story got off to a quick start and never looked back. After winning their first game with ease, they won their second game with ease as well. They have shooters all over the floor and they rebound the ball well. Of course with sophomore Reagan Barkema they will be in good hands, but this group has a lot of solid pieces around her. Senior point guard Juliann Clark does a really nice job of setting up the offense and everyone else just kind of falls into line. I was really impressed with junior Danielle Grady off the bench as she was 4-of-6 from the floor for ten points. She knocked down two 3-pointers and really gave them a boost in the second half.
Don’t gloss over what Kylie Tjernagel did tonight
Tjernagel was tasked with guarding East Marshall’s top scorer, Olivia Terrones. In the first game of the year, Terrones scored 22 points after scoring 16.7 points a year ago. If Roland-Story was to win they were going to have to shut her down. Tjernagel faceguarded her the entirety of the first half and did a tremendous job holding her to just two points on 1-of-6 shooting. Terrones finished with 10 points, but over half came when Tjernagel was on the bench. She also scored 10 points and dished off three steals to help her team to the win. A lot of people wouldn’t notice it, but Tjernagel was one of the main reasons that the visitors left with a win.
Reagan Barkema is getting better and better
Barkema was a known player last year and now she just looks so much better. She has gotten a lot more comfortable on the perimeter and her shot looks really, really solid. She struggled shooting the ball tonight as she was 3-for-9 from behind the arc but she got to the rim really well and finished. On the night she was 7-of-13 and scored 16 points. She looks more versatile and confident on the defensive end of the floor than she did last year and she finished the game with four steals in about 18-20 minutes of action. Barkema is a very stout passer too as she was able to dish off four assists in the game.
East Marshall needs to find a consistent scorer outside of Olivia Terrones
Coming into the game Terrones did the bulk of the scoring for East Marshall. In order for them to be effective, they will have to find an additional couple of scorers. Last night, as mentioned before, Terrones was faceguarded and struggled to score until late in the game. It was nice to see junior Clare Veren and sophomore Ellie Hull step up and score a combined 19 points. For East Marshall to be a true threat going forward these two players are going to need to pitch in 20-25 points consistently along with Terrones throwing up 20 points a game.
East Marshall has the potential to win a lot of games this year
For East Marshall to outdo their record of 9-13 from last year, they are going to have to avoid the times where they have multiple losses stack up. They started the year 1-0, like this year, but then went on to lose four in a row. They got their record to 6-5 at the winter break but then lost seven in a row after the turn of the calendar. They were competitive but just couldn’t rack up wins as they went 3-8 to end the year. This season they are a little better and going through that last year will likely spur them along to not have a repeat down performance.