What did we learn: Semi Final night at the Alton Tourney

With seven teams entered in the Alton tourney Friday night was the essentially the semi final night. Jerseyville played Breese Mater Dei in the final pool play game and Breese Central played Alton in the bracket game. By beating Mater Dei and winning the pool play tie breaker Jerseyville advanced to the championship and Breese Central broke open their game to earn the spot against Jerseyville. It is early in the season and each team is still developing. Here are my observations from these two games. Jerseyville struggled in their opening round game against Springfield Lanphier, but they seemed to have solved some of those issues before playing Mater Dei. The surprise to me was <strong>Lauren Brown. </strong>Lauren is a 5'11 2020 post player that had 16 points. She is strong and tough with the nasty streak that I like to see. When she gets the rebound she is going to pivot and clear space and if you would like to keep your own teeth in tact you might want to watch out as she pivots. She does exactly what post players are taught, chin the ball, get your elbows out and pivot to find your outlet pass.<strong>Clare Breden </strong>continues to do what Clare Breden does. She is a 5'5 2021 scorer and is hard to stop. She handles the ball well and is very smart about how to use her dribble and hesitation to get to the rim. Her 3-point shot is excellent but she did not use it much in this game as Mater Dei was trying to take it away. In the end she was 10/11 from the free throw line and had 24 points. <strong>Abby Manns </strong>had a very good night on defense. Her length tends to give other wings trouble and this provided a good match up solution for Coach Strebel when looking at how to stop Mater Dei. Abby is a 5'7 2020 guard that is a 3 year starter for Jerseyville. <strong>Boston Talley </strong>and <strong>Bella Metzler </strong>provided some additional scoring punch with 6 and 7 respectively. Those two will be counted on throughout the season to score much needed baskets as teams work hard to take away Breden. Mater Dei won their first round game but could not handle Jerseyville Friday night. They started slow and although they made a few runs throughout the day, they never really got it going for long. <strong>Shannon Lampe </strong>is a 5'10 2020 wing that is the leading scorer that returns for Mater Dei. Shannon is long and athletic but she had a hard time finding her spots against Manns. Shannon ended up with 13 points with only 1 field goal and 11/12 at the free throw line. <strong>Madi Strieker </strong>is a 5'5 2020 guard that had a good game. She had 14 points and shot the ball well around the rim and in the mid range. With the way the motion offense works that Coach Kohnen likes you never know for sure who will get the shots, it depends on how the defense plays everything and then the offense reacts. On this night, Madi and <strong>Claire Tonnies </strong>got good opportunities. Claire is a 5'8 2020 forward that also had a nice night taking it to the rim or hitting the mid range shots. She finished with 15 points including 9/12 at the line. As they are coming off screens both girls did a good job of reading what was available.Overall you could tell that veteran Coach Dave Kohnen was looking for more out of his girls and could not get it. I am sure he will have them ready as the season moves into playoff time, but for now they were not there yet. <strong>Lainey Kramer </strong>and <strong>Klara Schildroth </strong>also had nice games for Mater Dei. Kramer had the task of trying to handle Breden one on one and put up a good fight. Breese Central took some time to adjust to the aggressiveness and athleticism of Alton but pulled away as the game progressed. <strong>Cassidy Kretschmer </strong>had 17 points to lead Central. Cassidy did a great job of getting out on the fast break and beating Alton down the floor. Most of the 5'10 junior's 7 field goals came on uncontested lay ups. <strong>Chloe Book</strong> is a 5'7 2021 guard. Chloe did a very good job as the primary ball handler responsible for handling the non stop pressure put on by Alton. When she caught the outlet pass Chloe was able to look up the floor and get the fast break going by passing it ahead. Chloe ended up with 9 points including a buzzer beater from the 3-point line to end the 3rd quarter. <strong>Miah Weems </strong>and <strong>Haley Ottenschnieder </strong>had 7 and 6 points for the Lady Cougars to help with the scoring load. Miah did not have her best game but the 5'9 junior clearly has the game to have another good season. Haley is a 5'7 freshman that provided a spark in the second half. She did a good job finding driving lanes to the basket and was able to convert in the lane or make passes to open players. She will most certainly be a player that will provide a jump start to the offense for Coach Rueter throughout the year. Alton Coach Howard has her team playing very hard early in the season. Anyone familiar with the program knows the unfortunate need to change coaches twice in the off-season. The girls on the team played stingy defense and competed. That is all anyone could ask for no matter the coaching situation. <strong>Germayia Wallace </strong>is a 5'7 2021 wing player that led Alton in scoring with 10 points. She had a nice step back move that she executed well to hit from the outside. She seems most comfortable creating space for the outside shot. <strong>Jimmiela Patterson </strong>and <strong>Danita Smith </strong>had 7 and 6 points to add to the offense. Alton will certainly have some tough times in the rugged SWC conference but with consistent effort and coaching they can maximize their potential. Overall it was a fun night at the Alton gym with some good basketball. Good Luck to the teams as they close out the tourney on Saturday and move on with their schedules.