Van Buren County girls best WACO

KEOSAUQUA — The Van Buren County Warriors girls played an all around complete game on Tuesday night, downing the Warriors of WACO 54-30 in the two’s final meeting of the season.

WACO held an early four point lead, but from then on out Van Buren never trailed.

The game was the second of back-to-back games for the Warriors of Van Buren. Van Buren bounced back with a stellar performance after being thrashed by Fairfield, 61-21, the night prior.

“It means everything,” Van Buren head coach Marly Hall said of the teams effort comparing the two games. “I tell them I can deal with missed shots and certain things, but when it comes to effort and heart that’s a whole different ballgame. We need to have that confidence all the time. The effort was much better and it made a difference.”

WACO got on the board early, with four straight points from leading scorer Ellah Kissell. Van Buren answered right back with a 9-0 run to take a 9-4 lead. Van Buren would never lose the lead. The Warriors in white held a 13-9 lead after one.

To begin the second, WACO was never down more than four. Following a pair of free throws, the Warriors in blue made it a two point game, 17-15, the smallest deficit they would see for the rest of the contest. Van Buren ended the second with a 15-4 run to make it a 32-19 game at half.

Van Buren didn’t show any signs of slowing down in the second half. Van Buren allowed WACO to score four straight points, but that was it. Van Buren held WACO scoreless for the rest of the third, while exploding with a 13-0 run all by Kadence Nusbaum and Annabelle Cormier. Nusbaum had seven of her game-high 17 and Cormier six of her 12. Van Buren led 45-23 after three.

Nusbaum said that the passing was a game changer for them in the matchup.

“Tonight, I think our connection with passes was much better,” Nusbaum said. “I would drive kick it out, others would drive and kick out, we work on that in practice and it helped a lot. I can’t describe how proud I am of my entire team.”

The offensive struggles continued into the fourth for WACO and the Van Buren lead continued to grow. Van Buren outscored WACO 9-7 to end the game. WACO never had a solution.

“They shot really well and they played really tough scrappy defense,” WACO head coach Lisa Graber said. “We always talking about winning a few stat categories and I don’t think we won any. We didn’t make it happen anywhere.”

Along with Nusbaum and Cormier, Ivy Davison finished with 10. Zoe Best scored six. Shea Scott added four. Jayden Lindley chipped in three and Jaelyn Boley two.

For WACO, Ellah Kissell led with 15. Grace Coble finished with five. Zoey Dennler ended with three. Halle Shelman, Emma Wagler and Katie Leichty all had two. Naomi Egli added one.

Van Buren improves to 5-11 overall on the season and 3-6 in conference play. WACO falls back to .500 at 8-8 overall and 3-7 in the conference.