Hononegah shows how to use efficient scoring formula to rule NIC-10 girls basketball
If things look easy for Hononegah’s girls basketball team, it’s because Honongeah works so hard to make it be that way.
That starts with an almost slavish devotion to the modern basketball principle of shooting layups and 3-pointers. That was never more obvious than in Tuesday’s 59-29 win over a Belvidere team bidding to have its first winning season in 18 years.
Forty of Hononegah’s 42 shots were either a lay-up or a 3-pointer Tuesday. One exception was a mid-range jumper at the first-half buzzer. The other was a missed six-footer off an offensive rebound.
“That’s the majority of what we do and the shots that we take when we’re doing shooting drills,” Hononegah coach Jason Brunke said. “It’s a good thing that it translates and that’s what we see in the game.”
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Hononegah (10-0, 6-0 NIC-10) is a third of the way to its third consecutive unbeaten season within the conference.
“We work a lot in practice to make sure we are perfecting our plays,” said senior guard Allyson Niedfeldt, who had 17 points and five 3-pointers for Hononegah. “We know if we have to make one more pass to get the perfect shot, we know when to do that.”
Jordan Dimke, a 6-foot sophomore forward, led Hononegah with 20 points. Her presence inside and the emphasis on layups helped open the outside for Hononegah 3-point shooters.
“It makes it easier because they all have to crash the middle and we can kick it out for an open 3,” Dimke said. “That’s how we get most of our 3s.”
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Belvidere (6-5, 3-3 NIC-10) hasn’t had a winning record since it finished 13-12 (9-7) in 2006. The Bucs were 13-86 in the conference the last six years before Emma Pierson went on a late-season scoring spree, topping 30 points four times and helping Belvidere win two of its last three games, with the loss by only two points.
Hononegah held Pierson, who came in averaging 25.5 points, to 10 points Tuesday, all but two of them off of fast-break steals. Pierson and Adrianna LaBeau (14 points) are juniors, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Bucs will continue to improve. Their JV team was shut out 60-0 on Tuesday.
“It’s a big deal,” Hononegah coach Michael Bradford said of possibly finishing with a winning record. “It hasn’t been done in 18 years. But right now we have a lot of other things to figure out. We are not doing a good job of playing together and understanding roles. Once we have that figured out, we’ll be OK.
“We will continue to get better. We have a nice group of eighth graders coming in. We just have to keep plugging away. We know we have a challenge, but it’s not a challenge we’re scared of.”
Hononegah put the game away early, jumping to a 24-4 lead. Pierson had seven first-half steals and the Bucs got as close as 35-22 in the third quarter, but she picked up her fourth foul two minutes into the second half and that was it.
If Belvidere wasn’t scoring off a turnover, the Bucs usually weren’t scoring, period. It’s that type of defense that has Hononegah thinking it has a chance to win only its second sectional title in 19 years.
“Beating Huntley really boosted our confidence,” Dimke said of a 44-37 win in Hononegah’s second game of the season over a team that is tied for first in the Fox Valley Conference. “When we beat Huntley for the second time in the past 10 years, that really boosted our confidence for the NIC-10. Beating Boylan (43-30) boosted that even more.”
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Hononegah's offensive efficiency overwhelms improving Belvidere
