Rocky Beats Normal West

From Argus Dispatch

By Dan Tomlin, dtomlin@qconline.com

NORMAL — The Rock Island girls basketball team prides itself on being balanced. The Rocks showed off their abilities in an opening-round victory over Normal West, 54-43, at The State Farm Classic. The Wildcats took away the inside presence of Rocky forwards Sarita Goldsmith, Rayven Morrow and Shamell Mangrum, so the guards made them pay in the 3A-4A bracket contest. In particular, Shavonne Brewer made Normal West pay. The junior guard made her first eight shots and was 5-for-6 from the free throw line to drop in a game-high 21 points. "Nothing came easy tonight," Brewer said. "When I tried to drive, they would collapse on me and I could get it out to someone else and I knew they'd make the shot." The Rocks got more than just scoring from Brewer. She doled out a half-dozen assists, with most of them finding their way to the hole via the 3-point line. AmUnique Washington, who is always a thorn in opponent's sides on defense, made good on all three shots she took, draining a pair of 3s off Brewer passes. Carlee Hoover and Raquel Garcia also dialed up from long distance to help Rocky separate every time Normal West threatened. "We're playing a lot of kids who didn't have varsity experience last year and can make 3s all day in practice, but in a game it's a different feeling," Rock Island coach Thad Hoover said. "We're turning a corner now where the young kids are wide open for 3 and are knocking it down." Inside, Rocky got just a combined 14 points and 14 rebounds from the three starting forwards, but for Hoover, that's OK. "We need to know we can play whatever style we have to to win and we showed that tonight," Hoover said. "We've got good balance and we're starting to figure things out." The defense laid the groundwork for the win. After giving up a pair of baskets in the first 70 seconds to Normal West to start the game, Rock Island didn't allow a basket for another 11 minutes while building a 14-point lead. The closest Normal West got after that was six points with 2 minutes to go in the third quarter, but Washington's trey nixed any hopes they had of playing spoiler. Rocky (12-3) will now take on Morton (12-0) who has knocked off Moline, 69-47, and Richwoods, 43-30, already this season. Both the Rocks and Potters began the season tied for 11th in 3A state voting. "There are no free passes in this tournament," said Coach Hoover. "We told the kids if we're in the winners' bracket that we're going to be playing very good teams from here on out. We need to use these games to prepare us for the rest of the conference season and the (state) tournament at the end of the year."