Anna Kelch was about as red-hot as the color Skittles she was grabbing at the scorers table.
The Simon Kenton sophomore got going early and often in the Pioneers 60-43 victory over Scott on Wednesday night at The Joe.
She had 18 points by half, 24 by the end of three as she had outscored the Eagles 24-23 through three quarters.
While the Skittles may have been the key ingredient, Kelch did it in a variety of ways, either hitting a deep 3-pointer or getting to the paint for a layup.
“Something is just magic about them,” Kelch said of the Skittles. “Purple and red are my go-to colors for me. I know that if my shot isn’t on, I need to drive it. My shot hasn’t been on the past couple games so I haven’t been scoring as much. Tonight I knew my shot was on and kept going.”
Kelch nearly tripled her season average in points per game, coming in with a little over eight per game and finished with the 24 after taking most of the fourth quarter off. She surely wasn’t the only reason the Pioneers led by as much as 28 in the contest.
You could point to the Simon Kenton defense that forced countless turnovers or the fierce nature in which they attacked the glass with a boatload of offensive rebounds.
“That was a big bullet point for us coming into the season is that that we had to get better rebounding,” Pioneers coach Brenden Stowers said. “If you look at the top level teams, they’re all great rebounding teams, so we want to be on that level. So we got to start rebounding at that level. And I think the girls responded very well tonight, they have all season as well.”
It was pretty much all Pioneers from the jump. They built a 7-0 lead and never really looked back, Kourtney Peterson’s putback to make it 7-2, the closest Scott would get the rest of the night.
Eight different Pioneers entered the scoring column, Brynli Pernell following with 10 points, Haylie Webb chipping in nine and Natalie Hernandez adding six off the bench with two of the team’s 10 made 3-pointers on the evening. Kelch hit four triples herself in the first half.
“We preach if you’re ready, you have the green light. Just as long as you have read the floor before you got the ball and you can see that you’re open or you can see the next play happening. If you’re ready, let it fly,” Stowers said. “So we work on those things. I let our girls know like if they work on it and practice and we see them work on it and put the work in, we’re gonna allow you to attempt it in the game and then if there’s success, continue to do it.”
After taking a 15-7 lead into the second quarter, the Pioneers defense really started to make its mark, a 23-5 run stretching their lead to 38-12 before going into the half up 38-15.
The 3-pointers continued to rain down as Meg Gadzala hit one to start the second half scoring, Hernandez beating the buzzer at the end of three to make it 51-23. Pernell’s triple with five minutes and change remaining helped empty the Simon Kenton bench with a 54-29 advantage. The reserves closed things out from there as the Pioneers enjoyed their 12-day layoff from game action.
“After Christmas we got back to fundamentally what we wanted to do. Fixing our traps, fixing our rotations and got a lot of work in and actually looked fresh tonight which was a good change from the middle of December,” Stowers said.
Scott was coming into this one cruising, fresh off a title at the 4 Bank Winter Classic at Garrard County, winning three straight games over Mercer County, Estill County and Holy Cross (Louisville). But the pressure defense was too much for the Eagles on Wednesday night.
“We have seen pressure and that’s what was kind of frustrating about it,” Eagles coach Eric Pouncy said. “A lot of it we learned from the Holy Cross game because they pressured the life out of us. Then our next game, we handled it. And then the last the two Christmas tournaments we were in, those teams pressured us so it was, I don’t know, it was almost like it was a shock in a way.”
Kaia Peterson led the way for the Eagles with 10 points, Noelle Price and Kourtney Peterson following with eight points apiece. They’ll look to bounce back on Friday when they host Bracken County at 7:30 p.m.
“There’s definitely some things we’ll learn from in this game. We’re 10-3 now, we don’t want to gripe on this too much, we do that and we can finish 10-18 if we let losses continue to bring us down,” Pouncy said.
Despite playing in some pretty high-profile tournaments such as the Billy Hicks Classic and the Queen of the Commonwealth, Simon Kenton faces their biggest game of the season to date on Saturday at Grant County, a 32nd District seed game. The winner will have the clear path to the No. 1 seed for the district tournament. The two met at the Billy Hicks Classic, a 53-42 Pioneers victory back on Dec. 9. Saturday’s tip is scheduled for 4 p.m. at Grant County.
PIONEERS 60, EAGLES 43
SCOTT — 7-8-8-20 — 43
SIMON KENTON — 15-23-13-9 — 60
Scoring
Scott (43) – Kaia Peterson 10, Price 8, Kourtney Peterson 8, Spencer 5, Holcomb 4, Patterson 3, Hall 3, Porada 2
Simon Kenton (60) – Kelch 24, Pernell 10, Webb 9, Hernandez 6, Gadzala 3, Jones 3, Blevins 3, Ober 2
Game Stats
3-Pointers Made: Scott 4, Simon Kenton 10
Free Throws: Scott 11/22, Simon Kenton 4/8
Records: Scott 10-3, Simon Kenton 10-3
