photos by Charlie McDonald (charlie.mcdonald@surewestsports.com)
by Mike Finnerty (mike.finnerty@surewestsports.com)
The No. 2 Pleasant Grove Eagles (7-5) girl's basketball team has been a group of road warriors so far this season with three of their first 12 games being played away from the comforts of their home gym.
Eagles' head coach James McKeever wanted the toughest schedule possible to get his team battle tested for what will be a very tough Delta River League, and even tougher Division I playoff run.
Tuesday night Pleasant Grove took to the home court for the first time in almost a month, and there waiting for the Eagles was the No. 3 Oak Ridge Trojans for a Delta River League opener.
Behind great defense, interior scoring, and clutch free throw shooting (15 for 18), the Eagles beat the Trojans, 56-42.
The "Big Three" of Avonna Lee (17 points), Marissa Wimbley (15 points), and Dejza James (11 points) led the Eagles in scoring.
"The ladies came out ready to go, prepared," said McKeever. "They came out with a lot of fire in their belly, ready to get after it. We have not beat Oak Ridge coming into this game and we knew we needed to notch a win."
Pleasant Grove went up 7-2 midway through the first, but Oak Ridge caught fire outscoring the Eagles 12-0 for the balance of the quarter knocking down one big jumper after the next.
In the second and third quarters the Pleasant Grove defense tightened up and the game quickly changed. The Eagles outscored the Trojans 16-6 in the second, and again in the third, for a 39-29 lead heading to the fourth.
When a Wimbley layup with 6:20 gave the Eagles their biggest lead of the night at 43-29, the game was still far from done.
Jenna Klein got Oak Ridge got to within six at 45-39 with 3:45 remaining in the game, but a free throw by James, followed by consecutive baskets by Lee, including a three, pushed the lead out of reach at 51-39 with 1:45 left.
"It was mainly just team effort, talking on defense, we picked it up finally in the third quarter," said Lee. "We got it together. We played as a team, talking. As soon as we saw we got the lead, we just kept going and going to get our stops."
"Their press is good so we had to limit our turnovers, and also we knew that they had shooters, so we had to pick it up on the defensive end, as you can see we did it on the defensive end today," said Wimbley.
Klein led Oak Ridge with 16 points (four 3-pointers), while Jenn Hoffman had several big shots in her 11-point night.
Next up for Pleasant Grove, now 8-5 on the season, will be games on the road at Ponderosa (Friday) and at St. Mary's of Stockton (Saturday), but with the win over Oak Ridge it's clear that the brutal preseason schedule is already paying off Pleasant Grove, a team ready to take that next step.
"This is obviously the first game in league and we want to be able to look behind us instead of looking forward to whose in front of us," said McKeever. "We want people to be chasing us. I have no problem having the "x" on our back."