By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

PHILOMATH, Ore.–  For being an young team, the Philomath Warriors raised havoc against the Stayton Lady Eagles Tuesday night in the Oregon West Conference match-up.

Despite being in a 15-13 hole briefly, and faced with the adversity of turnovers and fouls, Stayton muscled their way to a 52-37 victory to break a two-game losing streak.

“It’s super important to us, we just need to work hard and come together as a team to win it as a team,” said Rachel Doran.

The Youthful Warriors, who have two freshman and five sophomores on their 11-player roster; challenged the Lady Eagles from the get-go.

Rallying from a 9-4 deficit to holding a 15-13 by the 6:36 mark of the second quarter, making life difficult for the Stayton Girls as they committed six fouls up to that point and countless turnovers.

But the Eagles were patient, riding the ship through the figurative storm to build a 27-21 halftime lead and a 42-28 lead midway through the third quarter.

“Every possession we have we have to take care the ball, limit our turnovers and work together,” said Doran the physicality of the game.

For Stayton Head Coach Melissa Hollenbeck, it was about how they stay within themselves on the court and not let the other team dictate their pace.

“I think we did a really, really good job of making changes ,” said Hollenbeck.  “Making adjustments and handling and connecting ourselves with patience and poise.

“That’s been one of the things we’ve been talking about lately is to being able to control the basketball, limit your turnovers, but don’t allow them to dictate how you play the game.

Getting to the lead wasn’t easy though.  Philomath made it known of their physicality as they continued to raise havoc on Stayton setting up their offense and forcing them to foul on defense.

The Warriors couldn’t capitalize on the Lady Eagle turnovers and charity stripe opportunities as they only scored 15 total points in the second half in the loss.

Doran mentioned that they need to work on them for the second half of league Friday at Newport for teams like the Cubs, North Marion’s and Cascade’s of the OWC.

“Work super hard in practice, keep our hands off no hand checks and be super, super careful,” described Doran on how to improve for the future.

Madison Anderson had a game high 16 points and team high six rebounds while Alyssa Lindemann had 10 points to go with a team high six steals.  Alexa Bender also had six steals to go with her six blocks.

1st      2nd       3rd          4th          Final

Stayton       13       14         12           13            52

Philomath    11        10         7            9              37

Stayton: Anderson, M. 16, Lindemann, A. 10, Hollenbeck, M. 8, Hendricks, T. 6,  Plata 3, Ikea-Mario, M 3, Lindemann, E. 2, Sheppard, S. 2, Doran, R. 2, Cates, M., Bender, A..

Philomath: Ecker, H. 13, Lillis, C. 7, Berklum, L. 7, Marshall, K. 4, Grimmer, M. 2, Matthews,H. 2, Manning, B. 2, Klipfel, M., Reichuber, R.

3pt: Stayton: Hollenbeck 2.

Philomath: Lillis 1

Stayton JV Won; Philomath JV 2 Won

PHOTO GALLERY (PICTURES BY JEREMY MCDONALD)

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!