Ohio's reigning Ms. Basketball goes for 36 points and 13 rebounds as the Pups run past scrappy Vikings
CANTON With two fouls on her star player in the first seven minutes Wednesday night, McKinley High School girls basketball coach Pam Davis said junior Kierstan Bell had to play “cautious.”
The rest of the Bulldogs stayed relentless, while a cautious Bell is still pretty dominant.
McKinley pulled away from a scrappy Hoover bunch at Memorial Field House for a 72-49 win, with the final score failing to accurately describe the competitiveness of the contest.
Ohio’s reigning Ms. Basketball, the 6-foot Bell totaled 36 points and 13 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the season. Twenty-four of those points came during the second half (including 12 in the final 3:44 with her team's lead growing to and past 20), as the Bulldogs’ pressure defense wore on the Vikings.
Bell’s impact was felt throughout, even while she was saddled with foul trouble.
She picked up her second personal on a charge with 1:31 left in the first quarter. Hoover’s Alexis Green made two 3-pointers in the final minute as the Vikings took an 18-10 lead.
Bell played through it for the most part, scoring on a layup and a jumper early in the second quarter to cut the Bulldogs’ deficit in half. By the time she picked up her third foul with 1:34 left in the half, McKinley led by two possessions and would never see its lead cut closer than four points.
Bell’s steal and breakaway layup gave McKinley’s its first double-digit lead at 43-32 with 3:25 left in the third quarter.
“That was the first time she’s had foul trouble this year and she did pretty good,” Davis said about Bell, who made 16 of 26 shots from the floor after a slow start.
The rest of the Bulldogs picked up their game, including other players having to take the responsibility of guarding Hoover’s 6-0 junior Annie Roshak.
“I tell them to step up,” Bell said about her teammates. “It’s a team effort. If I’m in foul trouble, who’s going to be the next person to step up? I think they did pretty well.”
Freshman guards Nakyah Terrell and Kyla Foster — both starters — scored eight points apiece for the Bulldogs (10-1, 4-1), while junior guard Chamera Young scored 10. Junior Jazzlyn Kramer (five points) brought a lot of energy off of the bench.
Hoover committed eight of its 19 turnovers in the third quarter, during which it scored only six points. Terrell and Foster’s ball pressure helped trigger McKinley’s transition game. Terrell had three steals on the night.
“I’m trying to get them to not play like freshmen anymore,” Davis said. “And Kierstan just puts everyone on her back. That’s why I believe she’s the best player in the state.”
Bell moved into ninth place on Stark County’s all-time scoring list Wednesday with 1,638 points, surpassing current Perry head coach Beth Sternberg’s 1,609. Her ability to secure the defensive rebound, then push the ball quickly the other way was a major reason the Bulldogs scored 19 points in transition during the second and third quarters. She finished with three assists and had a handful of hockey assists to go with them.
Wednesday was Hoover’s first visit to the Field House since Maddie Blyer’s last-second 3-pointer gave the Vikings a 44-43 win against GlenOak in last season’s district final.
The times and circumstances have changed for Hoover (5-7, 2-3), which lost for the third time in its last four games against its typical brutal schedule. The young Vikings are down three starters to injury, including Eastern Michigan recruit Makenna Drabick.
“We’ve faced some adversity this season in different ways,” Hoover head coach Abbey Allerding said. “We’re just learning what it looks like to compete, what it looks like to fill different roles on different nights. I think our kids are getting better. You know, the league is tough.”
Roshak totaled 27 points and nine rebounds, while Green scored all 14 of her points in the first half. As Davis put it, the Bulldogs heightened their “awareness” of where the senior Green was in the second half.
“We made (Roshak) miss some shots, but she’s going to get hers,” Davis said. “But we can’t let somebody else do it, too.”
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