By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SILVERTON, Ore.–  Silverton’s opened the 2023 Calendar year with their own style of aggressiveness and energy that halted Lebanon in the two squads Mid-Willamette Conference game to open the 2023 calendar year Monday evening in Silverton.

In what began to look like a tight affair with the Foxes leading 12-6 after one and even tighter at 12-8 in the opening seconds of the second quarter, something just clicked with their aggression and their energy suddenly surged that turned the four-point lead into a 35-11 lead by the halftime break.

“Today we had a lot of energy, we all came together on the court, everyone was doing the right thing.  We had some good defense, Kyeligh (Brown) had some assists, everyone was doing their job.  Just right now we’re clicking as a team,” Silverton’s Justina Semerikov said.

Semerikov contributed 12 points for the Foxes while Brown led the squad with 14 in the win.  Kristen Kuenzi added another eight for the Foxes.

The Warriors, who were coming off a 1-2 trip in Florida over Winter break, were led by Hallie Miller’s five points with Bailey Donohue, Peyton Vorderstrasse and Abby McDonough each adding four points as they couldn’t find a groove over the remainder of the game as they did to start.  With it just being their second game of the league season, there’s still a lot of time to reset and refocus.  Taking the lessons from this game as they now prepare for their next test against West Albany on Thursday sitting 5-3 on the season and 1-1 in league play.

“It’s definitely going to push us.  It was a tough one, not going to lie, that one was pretty tough but we’ll come back.  I don’t know what happened, I can’t tell you what happened but effort was lacking.  We had a talk about that and there’s definitely going to be a change in the future after tonight,” Donohue said.  “Things to work on, things to make us better.  Trust is definitely one thing we’re going to work on and playing together in hard situations.  We’re always growing, there’s always a time to grow in this game and we’re never satisfied.”

The Foxes improve to 5-2 on the year after their fifth-straight win and are 2-0 in league play as they head for their first league road trip of the year to Central Thursday for a 7pm tipoff with the Panthers.  

Photos By Jeremy McDonald