By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Highlands’ coach Jamie Walz Richey knew exactly where Ryle’s Katie Haitz was coming from in their Ninth Region matchup Sunday.
“I coached a team with three eight-grade starters once – four years ago,” so the challenge facing Ryle veteran Haitz with her oh-so-young team Richey completely understood. Been there, done that, she said.
“I’ve been in Katie’s shoes,” Richey said after Highlands’ 67-50 win over Ryle, sending the Bluebirds on to Wednesday’s 8 p.m. semifinal game at Truist Arena against a Notre Dame team that outlasted St. Henry in the final first-round game.
“We graduated six seniors a year ago,” Haitz said of her Union program that’s always been one of the teams to beat. Now it’s a team, with those three young starters not in high school yet, that’s just trying to get better.
Not that Highlands, and 6-foot-3 senior center Marissa Green on her way to the University of Illinois-Chicago, were going to let that happen on this night if they could help it.
Playing against Ryle’s 6-5 eighth-grader Jayden McClain, “I had to use my physicality, she’s young,” Green said of McClain, who despite her youth, averaged 10.3 points and 9.0 rebounds a game for the 9-23 Raiders.
But if Green used her physicality, it was McClain who paid the price, picking up a pair of fouls in the game’s first 1:33 and having to take a seat on the bench. She would play a total of 13:16 before fouling out, scoring five points with one rebound in one of those grade school moments a player will take to high school with her.
“Jaelyn (Jones) and Jayden are such good players, we just tried to slow them down,” Richey said. “For most of the time we did a pretty good job on them and then Jayden picked up her second foul.”
“The ceiling is very high for Jayden,” Haitz said. It’s just a matter of learning how to compete at this level at her age.
As for the junior Jones, she would not allow that Highlands’ focus get to her, tying Green for game-high scoring honors with 23 points while adding seven rebounds with seven assists in an impressive 31:41 on the court.
Green, meanwhile, was having one of those games, hitting on nine of 10 field goal attempts while finishing her double-double night with 10 rebounds and a blocked shot.
As far as playing on the 10-feet longer 94-foot college floor, Richey said her team had a bit of an edge after playing here a month ago in a Highlands-hosted tripleheader. This time, she said, her players knew which three-point line to shoot behind after firing away from the much farther college arc in that game.
“The longer court is to our benefit,” Richey said, “we have post players (with Ty Berry, who will be playing at Furman next year, joining Green) who can get up and down.”
“We had a tough schedule to get them better,” Haitz said, “we’re starting to see some of the benefits.” One of those: “playing hard at the end, even with Jayden in foul trouble.”
And how to get Jones more help. “That’s the exciting part, figuring out what works,” Haitz said. But that’s for next season. Richey’s challenge is doing the same the next couple of days for a Notre Dame team Highlands hasn’t faced this season.
And for the young Raiders, it’s “the physicality. We talked about that a lot. This is another level of physicality,” especially for grade-schoolers. And at the end of a much longer 32 game season, Haitz said, much longer than freshmen or JV players face.
SCORING SUMMARY
Ryle 13 6 10 21—50
Highlands 17 13 21 16—67
Ryle Raiders (9-23): Brown 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Aschermann 0-2 0-2 0-0 0, Welter 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Fong 1-2 1-1 0-0 3, Dowell 1-3 1-2 0-0 3, Sickmeier 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Jones 8-19 0-5 7-11 23, Hay0-3 0-3 0-0 0, R. Warner 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, McClain 2-8 0-3 1-2 5, A. Warner 5-11 2-6 0-0 12, Hampton 2-3 0-1 0-0 4; TOTALS: 19-51 4-23 8-13 50.
Highlands Bluebirds (22-8):Super Richey 0-1 0-1 0-0 0, Mills 4-10 3-5 0-0 11, Orme 5-10 0-4 5-6 15, Green 9-10 0-0 5-10 23, G. Neufarth 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Lickert 1-1 0-0 0-0 2, Bucher 1-4 0-1 2-2 4, Barrett 1-2 0-1 0-0 2, Barlow 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Berry 4-8 0-0 0-0 8, Barber 1-3 0-2 0-0 2; TOTALS: 26-51 3-14 12-18 67.
