Gabby Piepho scores 30, Howell girls basketball beats No. 6 Canton
HOWELL — Gabby Piepho’s first shot of the night hit iron, bounced high above the rim and fell straight through the net.
It was a sign — this was her night.
In the moment, she didn’t give any thought to the fortunate bounce.
Basketball players don’t score 30 points and lead their teams to victories over undefeated squads by admiring their shots.
“I don’t know what I felt at that point,” Piepho said Wednesday night after Howell’s decisive 56-34 victory over an 8-0 Canton team. “I was just on to the next play. You’ve just got to keep focused throughout the whole game.”
The shot was the first of six 3-pointers Piepho knocked down, as she scored 28 points through the first three quarters. The sophomore guard has two of the three 30-point performances in Livingston County this season, having scored a career-high 34 points Dec. 8 against Farmington Hills Mercy.
She scored 17 of Howell’s 19 points in the second and third quarters.
“I just trusted my team, let the game come to me and just kept playing,” Piepho said. “That was the outcome.”
Getting 30 points from their best player was a huge element in the Highlanders’ victory, but it took more than that to rout the sixth-ranked team in Division 1 by 22 points.
Howell held Canton to only 19 points in the final three quarters after taking a 22-15 lead through one. That type of defensive effort required all hands on deck.
“We really did what we were trying to do,” Howell coach Jason Piepho said. “Offensively, we had great ball movement, and that got us open looks. Gabby was knocking them down and that kind of got us going. It was a good defensive team effort all game long.”
The Highlanders have won four straight games since going into Christmas break with a 3-3 record, the three losses coming by a combined seven points.
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Howell has blown out two Plymouth-Canton teams that came in with outstanding records, beating a 7-2 Plymouth team 50-16 on Jan. 9.
“It’s really exciting,” Gabby Piepho said. “We’re bringing everything together now. We called the break of Christmas our moving point. We’re all finding our roles and everything’s jelling. It felt really good to come out and get that win on them.”
Howell never trailed after Piepho’s first 3-pointer of the game gave the Highlanders a 5-2 lead.
The Highlanders held the Chiefs without a point for a stretch of 6 minutes, 57 seconds in the second and third quarters.
Canton’s 6-foot senior center, Justice Tramble, gave the Highlanders problems in the paint, scoring 23 points, but the rest of the Chiefs had only 11.
“They’re big, they’re strong, they’re athletic,” coach Piepho said. “We play with a lot of heart. I thought just the execution and the physicality we played with, we played bigger than we are. As a coach, it’s fun to watch.”
Alison Farr helped the Highlanders put the game away and turn it into a blowout. With Howell leading 45-34, Farr scored the next 10 points to finish with 13.
Howell moved into first place in the KLAA West, one-half game ahead of Canton. Howell is 4-1, Canton 3-1 and Salem 2-1. Because of postponements in the past week, not every team has played the same number of division games. The Canton-Howell game was originally scheduled for Tuesday at Canton, but was moved to Howell as the first game of a varsity doubleheader between the schools.
Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Gabby Piepho scores 30, Howell girls basketball beats No. 6 Canton
