North dams sophomore Tatum Grooms scored 9 points in the Lady Devils’ 62-19 Foundation Game win at Georgetown on November 19. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
After a Friday night half of preview action, Coach Rob Davis and his North Adams Lady Devils made it a little more “realistic” the following night when they traveled to Georgetown High School to face the Lady G-Men in their annual Foundation Game, that benefits the Coaches Community Fund. Instead of the to quarters the night before, Saturday night’s action better simulated the regular season, four eight-minute quarters.
As usual, the Lady Devils go into the 2022-23 season wit high expectations, albeit with an unusual roster of just 10 girls, who in Coach Davis’s system, will all see plenty of minutes. Davis used his entire roster on Saturday in Georgetown and the end result was a lopsided 62-19 win over the home team.
The North Adams girls shot the ball extremely well at the SHAC Preview, and they didn’t cool off in the first quarter of their trip to Brown County, putting up 21 first quarter points. Harlee Brand tallied 7 of those points, including a three-point goal, and Karlie Kennedy also hit from long distance as the Lady Devils ended the first period with a 10-point advantage.
Literally the entire Georgetown offense in the first half came from Gabrielle Ernst, who tossed in 12, but that was not enough to put much of a dent in the North Adams lead. In the second stanza, the Lady Devils got a three-ball from Laney Ruckel and single buckets from Brand, Katelynn Boerger, Kenlie Jones and Taylor Shelton as they rolled to a 33-16 lead at the intermission.
Out of the intermission, it was all North Adams as the Lady G-men only mustered one point over the eight minutes of the third quarter and only two in the final eight minutes. Meanwhile, the Lady Devils scored 15 in the third quarter to blow the game wide open, their only struggles coming from the free throw stripe, where they were just 4 of 10 in the third and 2 of 6 in the fourth, 10 for 22 in the game.
Senior Keetyn Hupp had a nice fourth quarter, scoring 7, with Tatum Grooms adding a pair of buckets as the Lady Devils romped past the overmatched Lady G-Men by the final score of 62-19.
It is a usually a balanced scorebook for Coach Davis’s troops and Saturday was no exception as eight girls reached the scoring column, three in double figures- Hupp with 14, Brand with 12 and Ruckel with 11. Tatum Grooms added 9 for the winners.
Gabrielle Ernst led the Lady G-Men with 12.
“We’re still working on rotations and get everyone some playing time tonight,” Coach Davis told C103 radio in the postgame. “I was happy, I thought we played well tonight.”
After one more scrimmage and a week of practice, the North Adams girls will open their regular season on Monday, November 21 with a tough conference road trip to Fairfield, one of the toughest venues in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference.
BOX SCORE
North Adams
21 12 15 14 —62
Georgetown
11 5 1 2 — 19
N. Adams (62): Grooms 3 3-8 9, Kennedy 1 0-0 3, Boerger 3 0-0 6, Hupp 6 2-4 14, Ruckel 3 4-6 11, Brand 5 1-2 12, Jones 2 0-0 5, Shelton 1 0-0 2, Team 24 10-22 62.
Georgetown (19): Stansberry 1 0-0 2, G. Ernst 5 0-4 12, Neal 2 1-2 5, Team 8 1-9 19.
Three-Point Goals:
N. Adams (4)- Kennedy 1, Ruckel 1, Brand 1, Jones 1
Georgetown (2)- G. Ernst 2
