The Morton Maidens basketball team hosted the Talkington Lady Warriors this past Tuesday night, beating them 30-16.
The win improves them to 3-4 overall, and with that third win, they’ve already eclipsed their win total from last season.
“For our girls, it’s been tough. We’ve battled a lot of injuries. We play pretty rough, so I think coming out with a win and battling throughout it is huge for our girls,” Maidens Head Coach Eric Velasquez said. “Last year, we won two games, and today we just won three.
It's huge for their confidence and what they’re building moving into the future.”
The biggest component in the win was the Maidens physicality, which showed itself specifically in their defensive effort.
They started the game strong by holding Talking- ton scoreless in the first quarter and continued that dominant defensive effort throughout the game, forcing 29 turnovers and coming away with 18 steals.
Even when they didn’t come away with the ball, their defensive efforts still showed as they also had 25 deflections in the game.
“We harp on a lot of defense. I’d rather you play amazing defense and then we’ll make up for it later if we’re not doing well offensively,” Coach Velasquez said. “What’s really exciting to see is the things that we do in practice, translating into a game. Our traps, getting loose balls and things like that, because that’s where we want to win the battle and then we can go have some fun on the offensive side.”
One of the players executing their defensive plan the best was Addison Enriquez, who led Morton with six steals, adding three points and five rebounds as well. Ada Torres and Khloe Aguirre both recorded three steals and six rebounds in the game. Aguirre led the Maidens in scoring with 13 points on 5/17 shooting and going 2/2 from the free throw line.
Addy Sabala also had a nice night with seven points on 2/6 shooting and going 2/2 from the free throw line, adding four rebounds, an assist and a steal.
All around it was a solid win, but Coach Velasquez still has things he wants his girls to work on.
“One of the main things we want to improve on is our backside (defense). We were leaving it open a little bit. We’re just over-rotating. So just watching film, correcting that,” Coach Velasquez said.
They’ll make those needed adjustments from Tuesday’s game before they’re back in action across the weekend for a tournament at Wellman-Union.