Prep girls basketball: Edgewood finds some rhythm, keeps Brave winless

OXFORD — Edgewood High School girls basketball coach Greg Brown admits his team isn’t always pretty to watch.

But when the Cougars are on, they are dangerous, as the Talawanda Brave found out Saturday afternoon in Southwest Ohio Conference action.

The visiting Cougars stormed to an early 12-point lead and took their foot off the pedal before shooting out again in the third quarter in an eventual 46-32 win.

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“We had spurts of being pretty, and we had spurts of not being pretty,” Brown said.

Edgewood has won four of five and now sits at 3-1 in the SWOC, and despite the inconsistency, that is all that matters to Brown.

“We break it down into six games, two seasons,” he said. “The league is our focus. We have won four out of five and come over here and get a road league win … I will take it.”

Sophomore center Callie Hunt led the Cougars with 15 points and seven rebounds. Junior point guard Zoe Stephen had eight points, six boards and five assists, while senior guard Emma Allen chipped in eight points as Edgewood improved to 4-6 overall.

Stephen said this latest stretch of games was important for the Cougars to string together some wins.

“It was pretty big to get league wins over Ross and Talawanda,” Stephen said. “We started pretty bad, but we are coming back. I think it is more important with how you finish your season than how you started.”

Edgewood ran out to a 22-15 halftime lead and utilized its inside game in the third quarter to stretch the lead to 40-20. Much to Brown’s dismay, the Cougars would only score six points in the last 11 minutes of the game.

“Our defensive pressure was good the whole game,” Brown said. “We have to learn to stay in our offense the whole game, not just part of it.”

While the Cougars left happy, Talawanda was left still empty in the win column, but not empty in the effort department.

Long-time coach Mary Jo Huismann, in her first year with the Brave, said her team has to stay focused on the positives despite dropping to 0-10, 0-4 SWOC.

“We have to do all the little things better,” Huismann said. “We miss shots we should make, and we let people go around us too much. We played good defense for most of the first quarter and most of the second, but then we kind of didn’t do a good job defending.”

Sophie Pohlabel had 14 points and 10 rebounds for Talawanda. Kyra Koontz had 11 points for the Brave, but only two other THS players scored. The home team was hurt by 21 turnovers.

“We just have to trust each other more and talk more,” said Pohlabel, a junior forward. “I really feel we should have at least three wins, but we don’t. We just need to have fun and communicate better.”

Edgewood shot 19-of-54 from the field, including 5-of-24 from beyond the arc. The Brave shot 9-of-36 from the field, yet did outrebound the Cougars 31-28.

Both teams return to SWOC action next Saturday, with Talawanda traveling to Northwest and Edgewood hosting Little Miami.

Edgewood 15-7-18-6—46

Talawanda 8-7-11-6—32

EDGEWOOD (4-6, 3-1 SWOC): Avery Stahlheber 1 0 2; Callie Hunt 6 1 15; Zoe Stephen 3 1 8; Emma Allen 4 0 8: Faith Whitt 2 1 6: Chloe Butler 2 0 4: Amber Moore 1 0 3. Totals: 19-3-46

TALAWANDA (0-10, 0-4 SWOC): Kyra Koontz 4 1 11: Jenna Tegge 1 1 4: Sophie Pohlabel 3 8 14: Jazz Bennett 1 0 3. Totals: 9-10-32

3-pointers: E 5 (Hunt 2, Stephen, Whitt, Moore), T 4 (Koontz 2, Tegge, Bennett)

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