By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
MCMINNVILLE, Ore.– It took a quarter, but the Silverton Girls Basketball team eventually found their groove in their 51-23 victory over McMinnville on Tuesday night.
Their shots weren’t falling in those opening eight minutes, but their defense did their job and limited the Grizzlies offense from going on a run of their own with the Foxes leading 11-5 going into the second quarter.
“We were defending and that’s what we always say that we want to do. It may not be the best offensive game to start, but we’re going to defend. Eventually, we kept getting stops and our shots started to fall,” said Silverton Head Coach Alyssa Ogle.
By halftime, the Foxes led 23-11 and their lead reached 37-15 going into the fourth quarter. Silverton freshman post Emery Yant stepped up big to lead the Foxes, scoring 16 points in the first three quarters of teh game, scoring five points in each the first and second quarter and six in the third quarter en route to the squad’s second victory of the year.
For Yant, there was some nerves going into her first High School game against Cascade last week but, like on Tuesday night, was able to control the nerves and was able to once again contribute on Tuesday night.
“Definitely in the first game (against Cascade) I was nervous going in, but I was able to go in, calm myself down and I went in telling myself that I can compete with any of the girls out and I wanted to do my best for my team and also for myself,” said Yant.
Karlee Martirano connected on three three-pointers, the Foxes made eight of them on this particular night as they begin a busy week ahead with two more games ahead of them with Springfield on Thursday and Redmond on Saturday. Both of those games are at home in Silverton.
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