UT Beats Moline

From the Argus....

By Dan Tomlin, dtomlin@qconline.com

The sense of urgency the United Township girls basketball team felt Thursday was evident. Playing against their "arch rival," the Panthers pulled out a gutsy 30-26 win over Moline at Wharton Field House. "It was definitely ugly, but at this point in the season, we'll take any kind of win we can in the conference," UT coach Justin Shiltz said. The 13-4 Panthers, now 2-3 in the conference, knocked the Maroons (12-8, 3-2) from atop the league standings behind a solid game on the glass and timely free throws. UT out-rebounded Moline 31-28 behind 8 from Halle Lewis and Abby VanDeventer. The timing of the rebounds was more important, though, as twice during the final five minutes the Panthers kept alive a possession for a second chance and made good on it. "I felt like it was going to come down to a battle of the boards and they beat us there," Moline coach Steve Ford said. "We had our chances to give them one shot but they got rebounds at critical times." Neither team could get the lid off the basket, as the teams combined to shoot 24-percent from the field. That was actually a vast improvement as they shot a combined 15-percent in the first half. "It was a grind the whole way," Shiltz said of his Panthers who shot 20-percent on the night. "The shots we took were good, we just didn't knock them down. "I came out of the locker room looking to see if they had put peach baskets up." MiKayla Fallon led all scorers with 12 points, while VanDeventer dished out a trio of assists. For Moline, Tiana McCormick and Kylie Romeo each had 7 points. McCormick led Moline's rebounding with 9, a game-high. "We had a talk before the game and knew that if we won we still had a chance to win the Big 6," said UT senior guard Kiana Brady. "We kind of realized this was our last chance to play at Wharton, and this is our last chance to win the Western Big 6, there isn't going to be a 'next year.'" That kind of urgency could be just what the Panthers need if they hope to dethrone Moline and catch Rock Island (14-4, 4-1 Big 6 after a 57-31 victory at Quincy). United Township went 4-for-4 from the free throw line down the stretch as VanDeventer and Brady each sank their freebies. During their final run, UT went on a 9-1 tear, holding Moline to just one basket, a McCormick lay-in, in the final 4:50 of the game. The Maroons now trail Rock Island by a game at the midway point of the conference season, but will need to put together a better offensive effort to stay alive in the race. "They're our arch-rival,'' said Shiltz. "We both like playing each other, and we know their personnel as well as they know ours." The two 4A teams in the Western Big 6 will meet again this season before a potential matchup in regionals. But Thursday, UT was just playing for their WB6 lives.