Despite the lopsided affairs so far in Corbin this week, the Holy Cross girls basketball team is learning things as they go.
The Indians tweaked something with their half court trap after watching film from Friday’s contest against Owsley County and adjusted nicely in a 67-30 victory over Nicholas County in the All “A” Classic state tournament semifinals on Saturday.
Now the Indians will get a chance to repeat with the title game on Sunday at noon.
“It’s not getting there, it’s winning it,” Indians senior Aaliyah Hayes said. “Getting there is just the start, we came here to cut nets.”
Hayes and the Indians did what they normally do on Saturday…turn over the opponent and hit them with balanced scoring. Hayes was one of five to hit at least eight points as nine different Indians entered the scoring column. Hayes also added five steals, the Holy Cross defense forcing 29 turnovers on the day.
“We wanted to protect the middle because usually when the ball gets to the middle of the press, it’s usually broken. We wanted to protect the middle and get the traps up top because that’s what leads to fast breaks,” Hayes said.
The glaring stat at halftime: Nicholas County 18 turnovers, Holy Cross two.
“We did a lot better job today than we did yesterday versus Owsley County,” Indians coach Ted Arlinghaus said. “They attacked us yesterday in a way we haven’t seen yet this year so it allowed us a chance to look back on film and make internal adjustments on how we were going to do that.”
Early foul trouble may have plagued Holy Cross early on, but with DMyah Williams back in the rotation, the Indians didn’t skip a beat. Aniyah Carter and Aumani Nelson picked up two quick fouls less than four minutes into the game. At that point it was just a 6-4 game but by the end of one Holy Cross held a 17-7 advantage.
“It was huge to have DMyah back,” Arlinghaus said. “Frankly, up until last week, we played six kids. So if we would have had two kids get fouls in the first three to four minutes, that would have been a big time adjustment for us to try to figure it out. But being able to throw DMyah in there and then Alyssa comes in and she holds her own it allowed us to keep going and not skip a beat.”
The lead continued to grow for the Indians, taking a 41-15 lead into halftime.
Nelson got the game to a running clock with a little less than two minutes to play in the third, Holy Cross’ reserves able to get some more run in the fourth to close the game out with the sizeable lead.
Julia Hunt led the Indians with 14 points, adding nine rebounds and five blocked shots. Nelson had 10, Hayes, Miyah Wimzie and Williams with eight points apiece. Wimzie also added five steals as they collected 24 of them in the contest. Aniyah Carter added seven points with two steals and two assists.
Nicholas County was led by Tessa Humphries with 13 points. No one else scored more than six for the Lady Jackets. Freshman Maggie Simons, who leads the 10th Region in scoring with 24.5 points per game, was held to five. Arlinghaus was well aware of her talents, the freshman scoring her 1,000th career point earlier in the tournament this week.
“I’ve known her since second grade. She was on my daughter’s AAU team growing up,” Arlinghaus said.
Now Holy Cross gets the rest of Saturday off and having been down in Corbin since Tuesday night, the downtime plan for the Indians as they’ve done all week?
“We’ve been eating a lot and playing a lot of Fortnite. Taking some naps, too,” Hayes said.
Sunday’s final will be at noon against Pikeville, who defeated Owensboro Catholic in the other semifinal. Holy Cross defeated Pikeville in the All “A” semifinals last year, 48-32.
INDIANS 67, LADY JACKETS 30
NICHOLAS COUNTY — 7-8-8-7 — 30
HOLY CROSS — 17-24-19-7 — 67
Scoring
Nicholas Co. (30) — Humphries 13, Davis 6, Simons 5, Banks 4, Carpenter 2
Holy Cross (67) — Hunt 14, Nelson 10, Williams 8, Wimzie 8, Hayes 8, Carter 7, A. Arlinghaus 5, P. Arlinghaus 5, Hill 2
Game Stats
Field Goals: Nicholas Co. 13/36, Holy Cross 31/70
3-Pointers: Nicholas Co. 1/6, Holy Cross 5/18
Free Throws: Nicholas Co. 3/11, Holy Cross 0/1
Rebounds: Nicholas Co. 31, Holy Cross 33
Assists: Nicholas Co. 5, Holy Cross 17
Steals: Nicholas Co. 2, Holy Cross 24
Turnovers: Nicholas Co. 29, Holy Cross 7
Fouls: Nicholas Co. 4, Holy Cross 10
Records: Nicholas County 14-6, Holy Cross 18-5
