Monrovia girls' basketball runs into early struggles in rivalry meeting with Cascade
Devin Voss
CLAYTON, Ind. — Before entering Tuesday's matchup with Cascade, Monrovia knew it was going to have its hands full with its Interstate 70 rival.
For the third consecutive season, Cadets coach Adam Parsons has his team playing at a high level, having only a single loss, and two wins over Class 4A schools, on its record prior to the matchup. But with the Bulldogs having won four of their last six, there was no reason to lack confidence.
By the time the first buzzer sounded, Monrovia kept it close, behind by a manageable 14-5 margin. Then the Cadets started finding the holes in the Bulldogs' zone. Once that happened, they couldn't stop scoring, defeating Monrovia 64-26.
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"When our defensive energy was good, I thought there was some good play," Monrovia coach Kevin Rounds said. "Our girls continue to fight and play hard for each other. We obviously didn't play our best tonight, but we've got some positive things ahead of us. Really looking forward to turning the page after tonight and flushing that (this game) away."
Cascade exposes the zone
Often when analyzing basketball, it's usually the successes of the zone that get highlighted. However, there are times when it's the inverse, and that was the case for the Bulldogs Tuesday night.
At first, it was working quite well. They generated an abundance of turnovers and managed to shut down easy looks inside. Where things started to get awry is when the Cadets started to lower the turnovers and expose the zone with an influx of passing.
Delivering the ball around the arc, and inside, they had a knack for finding the open shooter. As the score indicated, they drained most of their opportunities. The other chunk of Cascade's points came off turnovers. Monrovia had a lot of them, particularly in the second half, providing easy fastbreak buckets.
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"We're going to work a little more on our man (defense) stuff, I think we can be a good man team," Rounds said. "But we've got to get back to that defensive intensity. Over the last game and a half, there's been that waver of defensive intensity, and that's what we talked about in the locker room. We've got to have good effort defensively to get results offensively.
The Cascade duo of Sydney Warran and Abby Parsons kept the Bulldogs on their heels all game. They combined for 36 points, with Warran notching a team-high of 20, followed by 16 from Parsons. Both average over 14 points per contest this season. Creedance Chittenden added 12 points.
Monrovia got similar production out of its two stars, albeit at a lower rate. Ashley Lewis, who leads the Bulldogs in scoring with 15.9 points, had a team-high nine points. Emery Newlin (12.1 points per game) wasn't far behind with eight, plus a couple of steals.
"Emery continues to grow in her role," Rounds said. "There's always things she's working on. For having to run a team at such a young age, she does a really great job. Ashley's such a great all-around player. She does all the things you want her to do, on top of being an outstanding young lady. Both of those two are such great kids."
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The loss sets Monrovia back to an even 5-5 on the season heading into Thursday's matchup with Herron. Perhaps the more important aspect to the loss, as it pertains to championships, is the fact it keeps them winless in Indiana Crossroads Conference play.
Fortunately for the Bulldogs, the schedule lightens up with rival Eminence, Indiana Deaf, Edgewood and Crawfordsville in its near future. That said, a date with ICC rival Beech Grove (7-4) on Jan. 7, 2023, will be an important one.
Monrovia travels to downtown Indianapolis to play the Achaeans, with tip-off set for 7:30, followed by matchups with Indiana Deaf next Tuesday and Eels on Thursday.
Contact reporter Devin Voss at dvoss@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @DevinVoss23.