The Sigourney Savage boys and girls basketball teams defended their home floor over the weekend in a pair of Achieve Challenge scrimmages with the Hillcrest Academy Ravens. The girls contest opened the day with a 51-31 Sigourney win. The Savages started the game on an 18-0 run, holding Hillcrest without a field goal for the first 10 minutes of the contest, leading 23-2 after one period. It was a 38-10 Sigourney lead at the break and the Savages would enact the running clock in the third, leading 49-16 going to the final period. The Ravens made a run against the Sigourney reserves, scoring 12 straight in the fourth to take off the running-clock before falling by 20. Sigourney junior Bailey Gretter joined the KCII postgame show to talk about the win. “When we press, me and Brynn (Clarhan), our job is to force them to a sideline and then take away the pass to the middle when it’s on the opposite side. I feel like we’re really handsy and that works really well for us. Our defense helped us progress into the offense. Steals and tips help us get fast-breaks and I feel like we all know each other really well off the court so our chemistry is good on the court and helps us play well together.”
The Savages won turnovers 35-16 and rebounds by 17. Seven different Sigourney players scored, led by 22 points and 11 steals for Brynn Clarahan. Addy Fineran had eight for Sigourney. The Ravens were led by a 13 point day, 10 in the second half from Claire Withrow. The Savages start their season Tuesday with a trip to Albia, the Ravens are 1-0 after a Friday win over Moravia and host Cedar Valley Christian Tuesday.
Sigourney started the boys contest on a run to build an early advantage and made that stand up the rest of the way in a 55-44 win. Sigourney scored the first seven of the contest and never trailed. The Savages led 18-8 after the first and 33-20 at half. The lead would grow to 19 before Hillcrest made their move in the fourth, putting together an 11-2 run to get within 10 before Sigourney finished the victory. Savage Head coach Mitch Eslick joined the KCII post game show to talk about the win. “The habits that we can build and the things that we got to do on the floor today, you can’t recreate in practice. Our depth is going to be one of our biggest strengths this year. We can play eight, nine or ten guys pretty comfortably, without much drop-off. (Rebounding) is also one of our big strengths coming into the year. John Berg was one of the top rebounders in our league last year as a junior. I thought Hunter Sellers did a good job in there, he’s got a lot of good size and physicality as a sophomore and Chase Clarahan coming off the bench is a really good rebounder as well.”
The Savages won rebounding 28-19 and turnovers 17-12. Six players scored for Sigourney with John Berg going double double on 14 points and 11 boards. Brayden Wood had 13 points. The Ravens had five on the scoresheet and a trio in double figures with 16 points from Kale Bailey, eight in each half, 13 for Rowan Miller and 10 from Gibson Scott. Both of these teams are on the floor Monday in jamborees with Hillcrest hosting their own and Sigourney traveling to Mid-Prairie.