Sizzling Harvest Christian stifles Westminster Christian

Good things happen when a basketball team shares the basketball. Just ask Harvest Christian.

The Lions stressed ball movement against neighboring Westminster Christian Thursday night. It enabled them to get one open look after another, and nine 3-pointers later they had a convincing 62-19 victory.

"We moved the ball a lot more," junior Isamar Garcia said. "That's what we were focusing on. Last night we practiced our shooting a lot and they just fell in tonight."

Eleven different players scored for Harvest Christian (4-2, 1-0 in the Northeastern Athletic Conference), the two-time defending champs who have challenged themselves early this season against larger schools DeKalb, Crystal Lake Central and Woodstock North.

"The past couple games were a really good warmup for our conference," senior Katie Kaldenberger said. "We just came out with intensity and I think doing our 1,000-shot night really helped with this game."

The Lions came into the season with eight newcomers - including six freshmen - among their 13 players.

They are starting to catch on. One of those freshman, Maddy Martin, came off the bench to score 9 points.

Kaldenberger led with 15 points and Garcia had 10.

"We just finally had all of our weapons playing at the same time together," Lions coach Rich DeTamble said. "Instead of us being a selfish team, we stressed one more pass. The next girl is open more and that's what we did tonight and it worked like a charm."

The game was never in doubt. Westminster Christian (3-3, 0-1) didn't score in the opening quarter while turning the ball over 13 times to fall behind 14-0.

Harvest led 30-6 at halftime, 54-8 after three and 62-8 at one point in the fourth quarter until Elise VanNoord scored 10 points to help the Warriors end the game on a 11-0 run.

"We had a really good Thanksgiving tournament and tonight they shot the lights out and we had a lot poor passing," said Warriors coach Fred Versluys, whose team is missing two injured starters. "Tomorrow night we need to come back and play better."

At halftime the Warriors honored assistant coach John Meschewski, who is leaving after 11 years.

"We have been very blessed, the girls have been blessed," Versluys said. "He takes it (basketball) seriously but never too seriously to put it into the bigger picture of life for them. And that's why all these players from many, many years have loved him."