Wolverines down Tigers in road opener

East Mills used a 13-1 second quarter run to pull away from Red Oak in a 51-30 victory in the girls basketball opener for both teams last Tuesday.
Both young teams got off to a slow start with some sloppy play early before the Wolverines began to warm up late in first quarter. They led 13-12 after the first frame before opening the second quarter on a 9-0 run to take a 22-12 lead.
The Tigers came out in a 2-3 zone defense, but East Mills coach Lexie Moreno credits her team for adjusting and finding seams in the zone for easy buckets in the paint that keyed the second quarter run.
“I think we found the shots that we wanted,” Moreno said after the game. “We saw the holes in their defense that we could score. We just kind of got our rhythm going and we settled in. And I think that was really helpful.”
That lead would swell to 26-13 at the half.
East Mills came out after halftime with two quick buckets to extend the lead to 30-13 before Emily Sebeniecher heated up, hitting three three-pointers in the frame to keep the Tigers within 10.  But Red Oak could get no closer.
The Wolverines’ lead extended to 47-27 with four minutes to go in the game on Ava Grindle’s layup.
Moreno felt her team settled in as the game went on.
“We definitely did not come out playing our basketball,” she said. “We had a lot of jitters. We started four freshmen. So, lots and lots of jitters. Eventually, in the second half especially, we played better but we definitely have some things to work on.”
Red Oak coach Tristan Johnson said his team played a lot like a young team playing it first game of the season.
“We’re a young team. We have two seniors, three juniors, the rest are sophomores and below. But, really, only two of our seniors have played. We’re just learning how to play with each other. And with low numbers it’s hard to get great looks in practice all the time so some of this is we just have to learn how to play with each other.”
A bright spot for Johnson was his team’s defense. The scoreboard may not show it but the Tigers’ press in the third quarter gave the Wolverines fits.
 “Yeah, the press worked pretty good,” he said. “We’re going to be able to pull that out this season. We just have to work on it. We can’t really work on it in practice all that much. We just don’t get the looks. Credit to East Mills, they had a three-man up front. We hadn’t talked through that. You know, that’s on me. We’ve got to plan a little bit for that. We haven’t seen them press break too much so, I don’t know it was good. It was good to see.”
Grindle, one of those freshmen making her varsity debut, paced the Wolverines with 16 points. Ruby Hastie added 15 and Caitlyn Crouse 10.
Sebeniecher led Red Oak with 14 points and Ellison Johnson chipped in 10.