Game was played at Newport Catholic and it was a very entertaining game, and a very nice crowd on hand.

 

SH up 10 at the half, Birds even things up with a 19-9 3rd quarter. Sacred Heart squanders a 7 pt. led with 1:30 to go, as Highlands goes on a 8-0 run to take a 1 pt. advantage. However, with :03.2 Sacred Heart gets a great dribble drive bucket for the eventual game winner. Highlands shot at the horn from 35 feet is no good.

 

So. Grace Berger for Sacred Heart is all that an a bag of chips......WOW!!!

Fr. Ashlee Harris for Sacred Heart hit some key "rain-makers" for both 2 & 3 land.

 

Fr. Zoie Barth for the Birds was outstanding....been playing varsity since 7th grade, seems like shes been there forever.

 

 

Thanks to @RCC9 for introducing me to @passtheball. :thumb:

For the first game of the year it was a good start for both teams as it was a competitive game. Both teams can take a lot out of this game, finding areas for improvement. I'm sure both teams will play at a higher level by the end of the year.

 

For the Valkyries one bright spot was that their overall defense was pretty solid for such a young team and first game of the year. They held the Bluebirds to 34% shooting for the game and 25% from the 3. Highlands was very good from the charity stripe making 22 of 26. SHA shot 50% from the field and only attempted 7 free throws.

 

Many high school teams don't set good screens or know how to properly utilize the screen and this is small thing that SHA can improve upon. On out of bounds plays, we would banana cut around screens versus going shoulder to shoulder, which made the screen useless. I'm sure they will work on that as well as game time management.

 

Grace Berger showed why she is being recruited at a high level! She was awesome in this game showcasing her handles and mid range shooting ability as well as getting to the basket scoring 16 points on 8 of 14 shooting.

Our true freshman Harris shook off being nervous at the beginning of the game to come through with some huge three's throughout the game.

The Bluebirds have some very good young talent as well with an impressive performance from freshman Zoie Barth who was their leading scored with 14 pts.

Great game to get the competitive juices flowing early in the season. Little sloppy on offense for both teams...but again, I think that's because both defenses get after you and defense is usually ahead of offense this time of the year. Also, SH is young and HHS without their PG. I'm sure all that will get cleaned up as the season progresses for both these teams.

 

Grace Berger is the real deal! Does whatever she wants on the floor. Really nice player. But it doesn't stop there. They have a real nice group of athletes and a few really nice shooters. Impressed with their freshman PG. She really settled in and made some big 3's during crucial runs for SH. This team is gonna be really good, but play in a brutal district and region.

 

As for HHS, this was the night of the unproven! The stars didn't really shine in this one for HHS. (that's not a knock, it's just a matter of time) But you saw the coming out party of some of the newer varsity girls, with several playing key minutes. Freshman Zoie Barth was outstanding taking over the PG duties for the recovering Haley Coffey. Chloe Jansen jumped on the scene with 8 points in her varsity debut (another freshman). Other key contributors were Macy Gabbard, Lauren Epperson and Emma Little. All are settling into their roles as new varsity contributors and it's fun to watch.

 

Love playing this game every year. Two classy and competitive teams to kick off the season.

I guess going into this game I was expecting to much. I thought HHS would have looked a lot better and I don't agree with defensive looking better than offensive to start the year these girls have been practicing for more than a month now and with the experience that HHS has coming back I thought would have played better. the lose of Coffey hurt but still thought they would have looked better.

 

SH didn't have much size and I would have thought Lee would have dominate the paint but looked very hesitant and would have also thought HHS would have gotten the ball to Adler more on the block. Berger could have done whatever she wanted on the court there was no one close to her I thought she passed to much. I get it was the first game but with some of the experience coming back I guess I expected to much.

Not sure why someone is called a "true" freshman in high school. Isn't she the same girl who played a lot of varsity for Butler last year?

How long is Coffey out?

2-3 more weeks.

Not sure why someone is called a "true" freshman in high school. Isn't she the same girl who played a lot of varsity for Butler last year?

 

Perhaps its because some parents "red shirt" their kids a year or so. :lol2:

 

Perhaps more in the boys side of things, but you get the gist.

Gotcha

SH has a history of getting kids from Butler's feeder program, so it seems.

SH has a history of getting kids from Butler's feeder program, so it seems.

 

I'm thankful she decided to attend Sacred Heart! Great kid and great parents!!!

How does a catholic school get so many public school kids? Trinity does the same thing. It seems winning has become the main focus of these high schools. I'm not saying it doesn't go on elsewhere, but when you are providing "scholarships" to high schoolers, something seems wrong to me. I'd be willing to bet these "scholarships" would not be offered so liberally if they couldn't dribble or shoot a basketball or in Trinity's case, football as well. IMO

How does a catholic school get so many public school kids? Trinity does the same thing. It seems winning has become the main focus of these high schools. I'm not saying it doesn't go on elsewhere, but when you are providing "scholarships" to high schoolers, something seems wrong to me. I'd be willing to bet these "scholarships" would not be offered so liberally if they couldn't dribble or shoot a basketball or in Trinity's case, football as well. IMO

2-3 more weeks.

 

Sorry if I missed the original conversation but did she have a ball related injury? Prayers for speedy recovery.

Sorry if I missed the original conversation but did she have a ball related injury? Prayers for speedy recovery.

 

Thank you! As of yesterday, she got her full release for Dec 7th. She was elated!!!

 

She tore cartilage in her wrist two years ago diving for a softball at an elite tryout. (Yes, she made the play, got the out and made the team!) LOL! But for the last two seasons, she's been playing with torn cartilage in her shooting wrist. She was reluctant to get it worked on because depending on what they needed to do once they got in there, it could have been as much as a year recovery. So with her age and being in the heart of softball recruiting, they managed it with cortisone shots and therapy. It never really got better, but she wasn't going to hurt anything to postpone surgery. So now that the important time for softball recruiting has passed, she decided to have the surgery. Poor kid has been hurt almost her entire high school career. Hopefully she gets back and can be better than ever.