by Fans, please note we are doing our best to avoid charging subscriptions and keep our content free in 2024, but we will need sponsorship help to do so. Please reach out to me at Vince.McKee@keeonsports.com to find out how you can help.
ROCKY RIVER, OH – An incredible 28-point display from Chelsea Evanich was impressive, but not enough for the Marlington Lady Dukes who fell to North Ridgeville 52-38 today in the opening round of the Rocky River Holiday Classic. The Rangers were led by their fantastic senior duo of Grace Kingery with 22 and Brooke Lime with 13. A third scorer has emerged this season in Reyna Balderas who had 9 more today.
This tournament and gym is special for Grace Kingery who scored her 1,000th point here last year, an also broke the North Ridgeville three-point record in this gym last year as well. I spoke to Grace about that after the game and she had this to say, “I like this place, yeah!”
Kingery took over midway in the fourth quarter when Marlington cut the lead to 4 points. She continues to show that she is not one dimensional and has developed a tremendous inside game as well. Grace explained a bit about that to me after the game, “It builds my outshot shot by also getting inside as well, because the other teams know I can shoot the three, so it is important that I show them I can do other things.”
I spoke with Coach Amy Esser of North Ridgeville after the game about how Grace and her teammates all buckled down in that fourth quarter after Evanich and the Dukes cut the lead to 4, “Grace can take over in the fourth quarter, and has done it since her freshman year. It was also nice to see other kids step up and make big plays. Everyone contributed in different ways and made things much easier,” said Esser.
Esser went on to touch on the ball movement of this offense and getting everyone involved, “We just have take open looks, and also get better at offensive rebounding, so when we take quick shots while open, we can get another chance at it if they don’t go in. Our shot selection was good today, we took a lot of open shots. We know we will get good looks, it’s just a matter of getting second and third chance points when we need them as well. Once Grace got in the paint for the put backs, it worked well.”
As mentioned, Chelsea Evanich was a pleasure to watch, as she chalked up 28 points and battled all game long. Allie Gill got hot in the third and early fourth, to finish with 8 points herself while Zoe Mort totaled 2 for Marlington. Finishing the scoring for the Rangers was Kailey Shulz and Alyssa Eland with 2 each while Maddie Eldrige had 3 and Macie Miller 1.
Marlington came out white hot with Chelsea Evanich scoring 7 straight points to hand the Dukes a 7-2 lead. From there, the Rangers got red hot from long range, nailing 4 straight from long distance by Maddie Eldridge, Grace Kingery and Reyna Balderas who nailed two straight. They stayed hot and a Kailey Schulz 15-footer at the buzzer, capped a 16-11 first quarter for North Ridgeville.
The second quarter was all Rangers as they extended their lead to double digits by the break at 27 – 17. Kingery had 7 in the quarter with 3 from Brooke Lime. The play of the quarter came from Lime as she saved a ball from going out of bounds and found a wide open Kingery under the hoop to score. All 6 second quarter points for the Dukes came from Chelse Evanich as she had 15 of her teams 17 in the opening half.
The Dukes cut into by two after the third quarter only trailing 40-32. Chelsea received some help from Allie Gill who had 6 in the frame while Chelsea had 9 more. For the Rangers, Lime looked good with 7 as she kept attacking the rim.
Another Allie Gill basket followed by Chelsea Evanich to start the fourth, cut it to 40-36. The Rangers badly needed an answer and got it from Reyna Balderas with another three ball to widen it back to 43-36. Kingery took over with 4 of the next 6 points scored and the Rangers made same room. With 5:08 to go, North Ridgeville held the 47-38 lead. The Rangers pulled away from there to pull out the 52-38 win.
The North Ridgeville Rangers will play the Rocky River Pirates tomorrow at 1pm for the tournament championship.
