The Effingham Lady Hearts had a tough night offensively, but made up for it on the defensive end.
The Lady Hearts held Taylorville to just 20 percent shooting, en route to posting a 39-25 Apollo Conference victory on the road.
“We played incredible defense in the game and that gave us a chance to win on a tough offensive night,” said EHS coach Jeff Schafer. “It was a good win for us.”
The Lady Tornadoes only cracked double figures in one quarter and that was with 10 points in the second period. They scored just 4, 8 and 3 in the others.
Effingham held a slim 17-14 edge at halftime, but then began to pull away in the second half. The Lady Hearts increased their lead to 30-22 after three periods and then outscored the Lady Tornadoes 9-3 in the final eight minutes to finish with the 14-point win.
Taylor Armstrong led Effingham with 10 points and Ella Niebrugge added 8. Annie Frost pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
The Lady Hearts, now 1-1 on the season, will hit the road again Saturday, traveling to Mattoon. They will then play their home opener Monday against Teutopolis.
The Effingham Hearts were ready for Mattoon’s 2-3 zone defense.
That’s what the Green Wave always play. And that’s what EHS had practice and prepared for.
But Mattoon greeted the Hearts with a man-to-man defense Tuesday night.
Yes, it took a few minutes to adjust. But once the adjustment period was over, Effingham was off and running.
The Hearts built an early double-digit lead and then rolled to a 78-56 road victory in their Apollo Conference opener.
“Typically, Mattoon runs that 2-3 zone. They live and die with that,” EHS coach Obie Farmer said. “We didn’t even practice against anything else. But sure enough, they came out and ran the man-to-man.”
Farmer said it took about five minutes, “but we made the adjustments and figured it out.”
After eight minutes, the Hearts were on top 17-7 and then built the lead to 22 points, 44-22, at intermission.
“We were able to get in transition and they had a hard time keeping up with us,” Farmer noted. “A lot of our offense wasn’t actually from running an offense. We’d get a rebound and just take off. We were able to get behind them and get several layups.”
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
Yes, high school basketball is back.
Thanks to COVID, there was no jump ball, no cheerleaders, no pep band, fewer than 50 people in the bleachers and no popcorn.
And, yes, everyone in the gym -- players, coaches, officials and fans -- had masks on.
But once the game started, the focus was directed to the action on the court.
Expectations for this Effingham Hearts team are high. And Saturday’s season opener only reinforced that.
The Hearts scored the first 10 points and never looked back. Nate Thompson and Parker Wolfe both recorded a double-double, leading EHS to an easy 87-38 victory at home Saturday afternoon over the Vandalia Vandals.
“It was just great to be playing again,” EHS coach Obie Farmer admitted. “We haven’t competed in a high school basketball game in pretty close to a year. It felt good to finally be on the court and to get a win heading into conference play.”
The Effingham Lady Hearts put together an impressive fourth quarter rally, but Paris still managed to come away with a 45-40 victory at home Monday night.
The host Lady Tigers held a 39-31 lead heading into the final eight minutes, but the Lady Hearts scored the first eight points of the quarter to tie the game. Madison Mapes knocked down a 3-pointer, Annie Frost scored three points and Sawyer Althoff made a pair a free throws, helping EHS knot the score at 39-39.
Paris, however, went on a 6-1 scoring run down the stretch to pull out the five-point win.
The Lady Tigers led 10-5 after the first period and 23-20 at halftime.
Frost led the Lady Hearts with 11 points, while Meredith Schaefer scored nine, Ella Niebrugge seven and Taylor Armstrong six.
Paris’ Madyson Rigdon led all scorers with 18 points.
It was the season opener for Effingham. The Lady Hearts will play two more road games this week. They will play Thursday at Taylorville and Saturday at Mattoon.
Unfortunately, we, the Effingham-Teutopolis Christmas Classic committee, have made the tough decision to cancel our tournament for this year.
In order to ensure the safety of everyone involved and adhere to the guidelines set forth by the State of Illinois and the Illinois High School Association, we felt that it was best not to host the tournament.
Our committee wanted to make this decision at an early date, so our participating teams could have time to reschedule.
Thank you to everyone for the support the last several years and we will see you all in 2021 for some fantastic basketball.
Stay safe and healthy!
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