Brimfield girls BKB starts season strong
By JEFF LAMPE
For The Weekly Post
BRIMFIELD – The Brimfield girls basketball team has started this year in mid-season form.
The Lady Indians have raced to a perfect record through the first week of play, featuring a combination of potent, balanced scoring and stingy defense.
Brimfield (4-0) opened the season with a 64-32 rout of Princeville, followed up with a 99-28 win over West Prairie on Nov. 18 and last Saturday opened play at its own Turkey Tournament by trouncing Kewanee Wethersfield, 55-15. Monday was more of the same in a 63-22 win over Tremont.
Senior Ella Lune tallied 15 points and topped 1,000 points for her career vs. Wethersfield, though Sophie Bedell was leading scorer with 18 points and Ellyn Peterson added 11.
Lune had 18 vs. Tremont and was followed on the scoring chart by Elly Doe (14 points) and Peterson (13).
“Everything is clicking and a different person has been the leading scorer in [our first] three games, which is nice,” Brimfield Coach Maribeth Dura said. “Our starters are pretty much taking control of the game from the start. We’ve score a lot and the defense is really good.”
Lune was top scorer against West Prairie with 24 points, while Peterson had 20, Bedell tallied 15, Ava Heinz had 13 and Doe scored 10.
Peterson was leading scorer in the season opener, with 16 points.
Brimfield resumes play in its Turkey Tournament against Peoria Christian on Friday at 2 p.m. and then has a Saturday game with start time based on overall finish.
Due to COVID-related issues in its school building, Princeville is not competing in the tournament and Dura said the seventh-place game will be called off as a result.
Princeville
All Princeville athletics have been put on hold until Dec. 7 due to increasing number of COVID cases in the schools.
Princeville (0-1) is scheduled to play Dec. 8 at Woodhull against Ridgewood.
Elmwood
A fast start helped Elmwood (1-1) in its season opener, but a slow start doomed the Trojans next time out.
Elmwood opened with a 61-24 win at Peoria Christian and led 42-13 at halftime. Mae Herman had 8 of her 14 points in the first half to lead Elmwood, while Liv Meyers added 9 points, Lexi Lehman tallied 8 and Bre Turner and Melody Glenn scored 6 apiece.
“We had a lot of people score, which was good,” Coach Gregg Meyers said.
Less good was the start in a 47-45 overtime loss to Midwest Central on Saturday at Brimfield’s Turkey Tournament. Elmwood was down 24-8 at halftime and allowed Midwest Central to toss in three 3-pointers.
“In the first half we just let them shoot too many 3s where we didn’t challenge them,” Coach Meyers said. “We were a little flat on defense.”
Elmwood was also flat on offense, shooting 3-for-27 from the field in the first half. “And I’d say probably 20-22 were good shots, they just weren’t falling,” Coach Meyers said.
But Elmwood clawed back to take a three-point lead with 1:20 remaining in the game before Midwest Central forced overtime.
Cora DeSutter scored all five MC points in overtime and led her team with 19 points overall.
Glenn and Liv Meyers scored 12 each for Elmwood, while Herman added 11 and Turner chipped in 8. Elmwood was just 5-for-14 from the free throw line.
“We should be able to make free throws,” Coach Meyers said. “And I feel we’re going to be a little more balanced once we get some things figured out.”
Elmwood was to play Kewanee Tuesday at Brimfield and then is off until Saturday’s games, as a Friday game vs. Princeville was postponed.
Farmington
Finishing 1-2 at the Fulton County Tournament was not what Coach Brad Whitcomb expected, but it will provide plenty for the Lady Farmers to work on in practice.
Lack of defense cost Farmington one game and poor shooting was a culprit in the other.
Farmington dropped its opener to North Fulton, 58-57, despite leading by as many as 18 points.
Reece Putrich led Farmington with 28 points in the game and was “just torching the net” according to Whitcomb. “But when the shots stopped going in, we weren’t playing the best defense,” he said. “Hats off to [North Fulton], they played hard the whole night and hit shots down the stretch.”
Farmington regrouped after that, reviewed defensive fundamentals and applied the lessons in the next game, a 55-28 win over South Fulton on Thursday, Nov. 18.
“We had a really good film session on Wednesday and we talked about defense. I saw everything we talked about the next night,” Whitcomb said. “How quickly they fixed things was very positive.”
Putrich had 18 in the win, Delaney Foster added 15, Emma Evans tallied 9 and Riley Jansen scored 7.
On Saturday the Lady Farmers’ shooting touch evaporated in a 47-34 loss to Lewistown. Farmington was 10-for-51 from the field. Yet despite trailing 16-4 after one quarter, the Lady Farmers cut the lead to four before falling. Post player Anna Webel led Farmington with 12.
“It’s nice to have a post player we can lean on when times get tough, because that’s going to happen again where we’re not able to hit shots from outside,” Whitcomb said. “There’s a lot of promise in this group. Every game is an opportunity to get better.”
