#7 Women’s Basketball dominates in win over Ancilla

Lorene Ramsey Gym sits empty after Friday’s women’s basketball game between ICC and Ancilla. PHOTO / ALEX STAAB

November 9th, 2018

East Peoria, Ill. – It was a blistery cold evening on Friday at ICC, as the #7 Cougars (2-1) took on an opponent from last year’s National Tournament, the Ancilla Chargers (1-1).

In the game before ICC’s, Kirkwood shut out Danville Area 22-0 in the first quarter. It turned out to nearly be the same for the Cougars. Two newcomers provided the early spark for ICC. Summer Stoewer (Fr. – Normal Community HS) and Rocky Stanley (Fr. – East St. Louis HS) combined for 13 of ICC’s 24 first-quarter points. It wasn’t just those two either. Jordyn Hare (Fr. – Macomb HS), Madison Faulkner (So. – Rochester HS), Emma Henderson (So. – Tuscola HS), and Marquitta Easley (So. – Zion-Benton HS) all scored as well. As what seemed to be one of the themes throughout the night, the defense stood tall for the Cougars, holding Ancilla to just six points in the first.

The second quarter saw things turn around. A positive that stuck out from this quarter of play was the shooting of Kathy Pinnock-Branford (So. – Costa Rica). Pinnock-Branford dropped two threes practically within a minute of each other, just part of her seven-point quarter. Ancilla countered with a 17-point quarter, with about as spread out of scoring as there can be, with no player scoring more than three points and seven different Chargers getting into the scoring column. Despite the resurgent effort from the visitors from Donaldson, Indiana, ICC still held a 40-23 lead at the break.

Second half. Different story. The Cougars came out firing on all cylinders. Three different ICC players had three or more makes in the third quarter alone. The Cougars would wind up with a seven-point quarter from Abby Coates (So. – Metamora HS), six-point quarter from Stoewer, six-point quarter from Faulkner, plus Becker, Hare, Stanley, and Easley all scoring. A big momentum push, or at least more momentum than the Cougars initially had, turned a 17-point halftime lead into a 32-point lead with just a quarter remaining.

If you thought the scoring for ICC would slow down, it didn’t. It was yet another balanced and high-scoring quarter for the Cougars. It took just about half of the fourth quarter, but the Cougars were able to eclipse 80 points at home, the first time that had happened since the final home regular season game against Lake Land on February 28th of the 17-18 season. It got even better for ICC. A layup form Catora Brown (Fr. – South Elgin HS) sealed at least a 90-point game. That hadn’t happened, against an NJCAA-affiliated team, since a 108-55 win over Gogebic, 11 days before the aforementioned Lake Land game. Becker followed up a missed shot underneath the basket for the final score of the game that set the final, 96-49, in favor of the host Cougars.

The win gives ICC their second overall win, and first home win, leading up to an important early-season matchup with a familiar foe in the #2-ranked Kirkwood Eagles (1-2). That caps off a brief two-game homestand for the Cougars, who will travel to Eastern Arizona (Thatcher, AZ) on November 15th, 16th, and 17th, and traveling to Rock Valley on November 28th, before returning home December 1st against Lake Michigan.

They Said It | Head Coach Karrie Redeker:

• On 96 point effort
  • “Thought we played really good defense. Held them to 25% shooting, and turned a lot of those turnovers into easy baskets. It was nice to see.”
• On early impressions of Rocky Stanley in an ICC uniform
  • “She’s done a great job for us. When she works hard in practice, it elevates our level of play. She does the same thing in games. She certainly has a lot of tools in her tool box. She can hit the three. She wanted the challenge of guarding the (LaRae) Rascoe kid. She certainly can bring the best out in others. That’s something we’re going to continue to look for.”
• On 24-6 lead after the first quarter
  • “The start was good. I think the kids were excited to be at home, play in front of a pretty loud crowd. We definitely want to continue to develop our bench. You can certainly see our kids like to play hard, play well, play together, and share the basketball. That’s probably what I’m most excited about, the 29 assists that we had.”
• On balanced scoring
  • “We’re still learning a lot about our team. We feel like we do have a lot of weapons, both inside and outside. They obviously mixed it up and played some zone. We want to continue to work to get better. Concentrate a little more on getting good post touches.”
• On matchup with Kirkwood
  • “We’re excited. Our schedule is brutal. We had NIACC (North Iowa Area) at their place last week. They’re #10. We have Kirkwood. Ancilla’s a good team. The Rascoe kid’s a really good guard. We’re excited about playing #2 tomorrow. Next week, we go out to Arizona. We got three really good teams. We want to be the kind of team that plays well and looks excited, looks forward to big games. That’s certainly going to be tomorrow. We lost here last year at the Christmas tournament to Kirkwood, so we feel like we’ll be ready for them.”

They Said It | #10, Rocky Stanley

• On her effort early on in her collegiate career
  • “When I first came, it was a new start, so I didn’t want to come in and think I was doing too much. As far as the team flow, all of us are playing together. I just come out and play my game every night.”
• On the team’s flow that resulted in a 96-point effort
  • “It’s all about practice. Every day, the same mindset and intensity to play each other hard. We come out and we play as a team.”
• On the team’s defense
  • “That’s the main thing in practice. When you don’t play defense, then you know you’re coming out of the game. We challenge each other every day in practice, ‘defense, defense, defense’. Defense brings offense.”
• On balanced scoring
  • “We don’t have a star on our team. We don’t have a main person that we go to. Everybody on our team has a lot of versatility. Everybody had their night.”

ICC Scoring: Madison Faulkner (14), Summer Stoewer (13), Rocky Stanley (12), Abby Coates (11), Josi Becker (10), Jordyn Hare (10), Kathy Pinnock-Branford (8), Emma Henderson (8), Marquitta Easley (6), Catora Brown (2), Raven Overman (2)

ICC Team Stats: Field Goals (40 for 83, 48.2%), Threes (6 for 18, 33.3%), Free Throws (10 for 15, 66.7%), 63 rebounds, 16 fouls, 29 assists, 7 turnovers, 5 blocks, 6 steals

ICC Statistical Leaders:

• Field Goals | Madison Faulkner (6 for 14)
• Threes | Kathy Pinnock-Branford & Emma Henderson (2 each)
• Free Throws | Abby Coates (3 for 4)
• Rebounds | Rocky Stanley (15)
• Assists | Josi Becker (8)
• Blocks | Rocky Stanley (2)
• Steals | Kathy Pinnock-Branford & Marquitta Easley (2 each)

Next Up: vs. #2 Kirkwood (1-2) | Saturday, November 10th | 2:00 pm CST | WATCH LIVE