LINDEN — North Montgomery girls basketball was looking for its sixth win in seven games Tuesday night as the Chargers hosted Faith Christian. Early in the game the Eagles jumped out to a 12-8 lead after the opening quarter. Then the Charger defense arguably played its best that it had all season over a two quarter stretch, allowing just five total points, including a shutout in the second, and one-made field goal as North Montgomery took a 36-17 lead after three and was able to coast to a 53-33 win overall.
The lone field goal for the Eagles over that span came with 24.6 seconds left in the third on a Maddie Schoenradt layup. Besides that the Eagles could only knock down three free-throws during the Charger run as North Montgomery’s defense played a big part in the third straight win.
“Holding them to no points in that second quarter played a big role tonight,” North Montgomery coach Ryan Nuppnau said of the win. “We’ve really challenged the girls to put a full 32-minutes together. After the first quarter when they got out to that early lead, we started to calm down a bit and adjust to their pressure.”
Katie Rice continued to lead the way for the Chargers in the win scoring a game-high 25 points and grabbing nine rebounds. Freshman Piper Ramey who was inserted into the starting lineup for the Chargers scored ten points and grabbed six rebounds to go along with helping anchor the strong North Montgomery defense. Madi Welch and Hadley Broadwater each had six, Lydia Dugard added four, and Kaydence Young scored two to round out the scoring for the Chargers.
“Piper is getting more and more comfortable out there on what her role is,” Nuppnau said of Ramey’s continued improvement. “She’s utilizing her strengths well and has matured very well. She played great defense for us tonight and is starting to look to score more which is good to see.”
What really got North Montgomery (6-3, 1-0 SAC) going on the offensive end was they started to feed Rice in the post in the second quarter. Rice scored eight of the Chargers 12 points in that second quarter and also for the game did was able to get to the free-throw line and knock down seven of her ten attempts.
“We’ve been working real hard this week on understanding positioning in the post,” Nuppnau said. “More importantly we’ve had our guards of how and when to get the ball into the post.
