Henry's rebounding effort not enough to save Rockets
Taylor Henry and the Unity girls basketball team suffered their second straight loss after a convincing win over Illinois Valley Central on February 8. Just a few days after picking up their first win of the season and despite another strong defensive rebounding effort while hosting the Knights of the Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond coop (ALAH), the Rockets dropped the non-conference game, 67-36.
Henry, a junior, tallied seven of the team's 18 rebounds and finished the game with seven points and one assist.
If was any consolation, the Rockets are just one of two teams to put up more than 35 points on the now 7-0 ALAH program this season.
Unity's scoring effort was spearheaded by Maddie Reed's nine points. The junior shooting guard found the rim three times out of six shots from three-point range. Her two buckets in the third quarter were the only field goals her team could muster when they could have used more.
Meanwhile, inside the arc sophomore Lauren Miller made 80% of her shots, going 4-for-5 to finish the game with eight points rounding out the top three shooters for the Rockets.
It didn't help Unity one bit that ALAH started the contest on fire. Their opponent dropped 16 points in the first quarter and tacked on another 20 in the second to Unity's first half total of 18 points, which was spread evenly across the two periods.
Knights' sophomore Charley Condill lead all scorers with 10 points at the intermission. She finished the game with 13 points, one of three players from her team in double figures.
In front of Condill in the scorebook was classmate Kailee Otto and her game-high 10 points. She went to finished with at game-high 16.
ALAH got another 10 points from Mackenzie Bowles to help sink the Rockets to a 1-4 record.
However, this week the Unity girls basketball team have two games on the schedule they can use to improve their record.
Tonight, the team welcomes 0-3 Olympia to the Rocket Center. Both games will be streamed on the NFHS Network. The JV contest begins at 5:30p and the varsity game at 7pm.
On Thursday, Henry and the Rockets will take a short bus ride to Monticello for another Illini Prairie Conference game. The Lady Sages dropped a 20-point decision last week to Tuscola, 58-38, and posted an IPC 58-39 win over Rantoul.
Box Score
| Unity | 9 | 9 | 8 | 10 | - 36 |
| ALAH | 16 | 20 | 22 | 9 | - 67 |
Reed 1 (0) 0-0 -- 2, England 2 (0) 1-2 -- 5, Renfrow 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Miller 4 (0) 0-1 -- 8, Stringer 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Steinman 2 (0) 1-2 -- 5, B. Henry 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Reed 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, Moore 0 (3) 0-0 -- 9, Alagna 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0, T. Henry 2 (0) 3-4 -- 7, Flesch 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0.
Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond
Frederick 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0,
Condill 3 (2) 1-4 -- 13,
Nichols 0 (1) 0-0 -- 3,
Brown 4 (0) 4-2 -- 9,
Seay 2 (0) 0-0 -- 4,
Beachy 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0,
Seegmiller 0 (0) 0-0 -- 0,
A. Miller 3 (0) 0-1 -- 6,
Otto 5 (2) 0-2 -- 16,
Bowles 4 (0) 2-2 -- 10,
S. Miller 1 (1) 1-1 -- 6.
