St. James girls build early lead, bury Georgetown with 3s
The St. James girls basketball team put Georgetown into a hole early Friday night.
And the Sharks buried the Bulldogs with their play from behind the arc.
Kimmie Hotzelt put up a game-high 17 points, Kelsi Bachmann chipped in 11 and St. James hit nine 3-pointers to down Georgetown 65-31 in a Region VII-AAA meeting.
“Big win tonight and that gives us some confidence. It also moves to 2-0 in conference play and that’s what our goal was,” Sharks coach Stan Patterson said. “I thought we were ready to play tonight and did a good job. We shot the ball well, played solid defense and the press was effective. It was a good team win.”
The Sharks got ahead early, taking a 36-14 lead into halftime. But their play after the break impressed Patterson, who said his team had trouble doing that early in the season.
“We had a couple of games earlier in the year where we had trouble keeping the same intensity coming out after halftime,” said Patterson, whose team opened the second half on a 19-4 run. “Tonight, I thought we did a good job of that and were able to get that big run in the third quarter.”
Hotzelt and Bachmann each hit three treys, and Ilenne De Los Santos hit two to keep the Sharks ahead.
“St. James lit up tonight on us,” Georgetown coach Tony Ford said. “Everyone in the region knows St. James has a real good shooting team and we couldn’t get that under control tonight.”
Ari Lance had a team-high 11 points and Rayna Crosby scored 10 to pace the Bulldogs, who travel to take on North Myrtle Beach at 6 p.m. Tuesday. At 1-1 in region play, Ford called Tuesday’s game a “must-win”
“That’s a big game,” he said. “All games in the region are huge, but we have to get that one in North Myrtle Beach in order to gain some confidence.”
Meanwhile, the Sharks move to 2-0 in region play and will travel to play Myrtle Beach – the No. 1 team in Class AAA – on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
If the Sharks can play just as well behind the arc Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to play spoiler to the Seahawks.
“We need to go out and have a good shooting night, like tonight,” Patterson said. “That’s what it will come down to.”
▪ GEORGETOWN (31): Tiara Nesbit 1, Alisha Smith 6, Rayna Crosby 10, Ari Lance 11, Alexus Milton 3.
▪ ST. JAMES (65): Caroline Tew 6, Kelsi Bachmann 11, Ilenne De Los Santos 8, Kimmie Hotzelt 17, Abigail Rumpf 4, Dominique Gross 4, Kaswana Haynes 7, Alexus Alston 2, Bethany Goodrich 6.
Georgetown | 10 | 4 | 9 | 8 | — | 31 |
St. James | 17 | 19 | 21 | 8 | — | 65 |
▪ 3-point goals: GT 2 (Crosby 2), SJ 9 (Bachmann 3, Hotzelt 3, De Los Santos 2, Goodrich 1). Team fouls: GT 11, SJ 19. Fouled out: Haynes (SJ). Technical fouls: None.
▪ Records: Georgetown N/A (1-1 Region VII-AAA), St. James N/A (2-0).
Max McKinnon: 843-626-0302, @mmckinnonTSN
This story was originally published January 15, 2016 at 11:11 PM with the headline "St. James girls build early lead, bury Georgetown with 3s."