Demons surge past EBF

The game hadn?t even started, but the Washington girls? basketball team was finding ways to overcome.

The national anthem wasn?t playing over the speakers at Washington High School, so the Demons stood on the court and started their own rendition of ?The Star-Spangled Banner.? They saw a problem and fixed it.

That mentality carried over to their season-opening game against Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont on Monday night, when the Demons were held to nine total points in the first half.

The Demons took a moment at halftime, saw the problem, and fixed it.

?In the second half, our offense started to click,? Washington senior forward Addie Pacha said. ?We waited for the offense to work, and for the defense to get out of the way. I know that I, personally, was more aggressive. I feel that was true for most of us.?

Pacha?s team-high 10 points led the team in the game, and after a second-half surge, the Demons were forced into overtime. A pair of buckets from senior Morgan Kimball (seven points, four steals, six rebounds on the night) helped solidify the game, and push Washington into the win column, with a 38-34 overtime victory.

?We knew we could come out and play a lot harder than we were before,? Kimball said. ?We?re just getting into it. It was our first game.?

Despite committing 27 turnovers, first-year head coach Jordan Bentley improved to 1-0 in his career as a Demon, and thinks this is a win the team can build on.

?It?s good for our confidence all the way around,? Bentley said. ?You never know what you are going to get with a new coach coming in and new ideas. You hope his ideas are going to work, but I?m looking for kids to step up, and we had a ton of those tonight.?

Bentley noted that senior Brynna DeLong, who finished the game with five points, a team-high nine rebounds and tied for the team lead with five steals, and McKayla Miller, who had five points and two rebounds, were among the key contributors for the team.

Despite the large amount of turnovers committed by the Demons, the attacking defense that Bentley preaches came up big, forcing EBF into 35 turnovers in the game.

?Demon basketball is attacking the ball as much as we can and putting on as much pressure as we can,? Kimball said. ?We?ve seen everyone else before us play like that and we want to do that too.?

With only allowing 34 points to the Rockets, the Demons hope it?s a performance to build on in the early portion of the season.

?I hope it?s only going to get better, and I think it will,? Bentley said. ?We got exposed at times being out of position, but other times we created what we wanted. We wanted to create some chaos, and I thought our zone defense did a great job of that once we got through some of those first-half jitters.?

The first half was slow going for the Demons, as both teams struggled to hang onto the ball.

After the first quarter ended with the Rockets up 7-6, EBF extended its lead to 18-9 at the break, in a half that featured 25 combined turnovers.

However, the Demons didn?t flinch.

?I don?t know if there was any great message (at halftime),? Bentley said. ?It was just to do what we know how to do. Let?s see what they give us, and then we need to run the offense like we should be executing it. That?s what we did.?

Washington exploded for a 16-3 run in the third quarter, putting the Demons in the lead.

The Demons extended that lead to 30-26, but a pair of EBF buckets tied the game up at 30 with 50 seconds left.

A pair of free throws from Pacha put the Demons on top by two, but EBF wouldn?t go away, and tied the game back up with 28.5 seconds left.

A last-second shot attempt by DeLong bounced around the rim after the horn sounded but fell the wrong way for the Demons and sent the game to overtime.

The teams traded a bucket each in the extra period, until Kimball found herself at the line with 1:40 left. She knocked down a free throw to give the Demons a lead, and on the ensuing possession picked up a steal and drove the ball the length of the court for a layup that put Washington on top by three.

After Eddyville-Blakesburg turned the ball over, Amber Salow (seven points, five steals, five assists) knocked down a free throw to ice the game, and give the Demons a victory.

Washington will take some time off over the Thanksgiving break before taking on Solon on Saturday, Dec. 5, at 2 p.m.