BENTON – The Rangerettes came out on top in their final home game of the season against the Murphysboro Lady Red-Devils 61-49. This win improves their regular season record to an outstanding 26-2 (7-1 conference) while for the Lady Devils this loss knocks them back to 17-10 (4-4) conference.
Thursday night was also special in that it was senior night at Rich Herrin Gym. Before the game Benton seniors Haley Ing, Taylor Mosley, and Marcela Mendez were all presented with roses and given a round of applause as they posed with their parents in the middle of the court.
The first half of the game saw Benton struggle a bit as they went back and forth with Murphysboro finishing out the quarter with a slim 15-13 lead.
Coach Andy Sloan tried to rally his girls in between the first and second, shouting out, “We can’t trade with them!” at several points. In the second the Rangerettes allowed the Lady Devils hang around until it finally came back to bite them. With under a minute left to play in the first half, Murphysboro hit some key free throws and then followed up with a field goal to take their first lead of the game at 26-25.
While Benton failed to click defensively, and was sloppy from the free throw line—although they recovered to 19/35 in free throws for the total game, in the first, they were able to turn things around in the third thanks in large part to a boost from Ally Gischer, who scored 11 points in the third to turn her team’s one point deficit into a four point lead by the fourth. This combined with some great three point shooting by senior Taylor Mosley helped the Rangerettes finally take firm control of the game in the second half jumping out to a double digit lead that they would maintain for the rest of the game.
Gischer was the game’s top scorer with 24 buckets. She was 14 of 23 at the charity line. Makala Abney scored 13 points and recorded 11 rebounds to finish the game with a double-double. Mosley also scored 12 points for Benton all coming off of three pointers.
For the Rangerettes, this victory was their first chance to celebrate the conference championship they had already clinched before the game even began. Sloan talked about this after the game. "We knew had it after Monday night after the results came out, but it didn't seem right or feel real until we did it out here on the court. It's nice to win the first conference for our school in 12 years."
Talking about his key players tonight Sloan added, "I thought Ally Gischer really asserted herself on the offensive end and made some nice things happen for us in the third quarter, and Taylor Mosley hit some big three pointers and that kind of carried us also."
Of his team’s poor showing in the first half Sloan said, "We were playing slow. We weren't getting the ball inside like we wanted to do. The big key for us is inside-out, get the ball inside. If it's not open we'll go outside with it and then we can hurt you at the perimeter, but when we just try to go from the perimeter we kind of get out of sync. I thought we were out of sync in the first half, but in the second half we kind of reeled that in. I thought our defensive pressure was real good in the second half, and that was the difference in the game."
Sloan also made a note to mention what his three senior girls have meant to the program over the last four years.
"Our seniors, they've been great for us for four years, and won a lot of basketball games and I’m just happy to send them out of our final regular season game with a win. We won the conference championship. You know that's awful special, hasn't been done here since 2004. I try to tell the kids to enjoy it because things like this don't happen every year. I'm gonna try to enjoy it as well, and we're gonna keep on chugging and see what happens."
In another great Benton basketball success story the JV Rangerettes bested the JV Lady Devils 41-20 improving their record to 13-2 (9-0). This is quite the feat for the JV girls considering they began their season at 1-2, and have battled back with 12 straight wins to come out on top of the JV River to River Ohio Division.
“I couldn’t be more proud of them and happy what they’ve accomplished. To win the River to River Ohio Division is something they’ll remember the rest of their life,” said JV Coach Jeff Roper.
