Shelby girls basketball uses defense, quickness to defeat county foe Hesperia

HESPERIA — Hesperia has taken some lumps over the course of the season - unsurprising lumps considering the team has but three upperclassmen on the roster. The Panthers didn't have enough players come out for the team to field a JV squad, so JV-level players are forced to learn lessons against varsity opposition.

It's a trial by fire in many ways, and that's what coach Ty Elenbaas tries to impress upon his players after nights like Thursday, when Shelby cruised to a 53-10 win in West Michigan Conference Rivers action.

"Kudos to these girls," Elenbaas said. "This is hard, to go out and be in a game where you're seeing scores like this...A lot of these girls aren't varsity players, and here they're thrown into it.

"We're trying to keep reminding those young girls that this is the toughest it's going to be, to stay the course, keep working."

The Tigers 8-0, 4-0 WMC Rivers) threw a press defense at Hesperia early on and had a lot of success with it, forcing turnovers and using them to create easy runs at the basket. That made up for the fact that Shelby has had issues going against a zone defense, which Hesperia deployed throughout the game and occasionally caused the Tigers trouble.

The most notable stretch in which Shelby tried in vain to overwhelm Hesperia' feisty defense came in the second quarter. The Tigers only had eight points in the frame, though thanks to their own success on defense still extended their lead from 18-2 to 26-5 in the quarter.

Coach Sarah Wolting said her team, which is itself young but bursting with talent, is better dealing with the zone this year than it was last year, but stretches like that one are reminders that there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Why the struggles? Well, asking is the easy part; the answers are harder.

"I'm not really sure yet," Wolting smiled. "I'm still trying to figure that out. We do a good job of swinging the ball up top, but sometimes it's just seeing what's happening on the inside or sealing the right person on the inside. I'm not really sure what it is yet. We're trying every practice to get better against the zone because we know teams are going to come at us with it."

In the meantime, Shelby can fall back on its extremely athletic and fast players on defense, as it did Thursday. Jayna Burmeister led the way, scoring 12 points in the first quarter alone on her way to a game-high 14. Annabelle Stark did the bulk of the work in the second half, going for eight of her 12 points in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was played with the running clock.

What makes Shelby's defense so tough is its ability to play it as one cohesive unit, Wolting said. 

"Our defense is just so tough - our press, and then even to drop back into a trap at half court," Wolting said. "We're so athletic and quick that our defense is what wins our games, and it comes from all five girls on the floor, not just one or two that stand out."

Normally a lopsided win offers the chance to get players that don't get on the court much into the game, and that was the case with the Tigers, though less so than with many teams, because Shelby only had eight players at tip-off. Two of those who don't always get in the scorebook - Peyton Rapes and Jasmine Ruiz - were able to do it Thursday. Shelby was playing its third game in four days, which could have contributed to some of the offensive struggles and also made the ability to get reserves in the game for bigger minutes a welcome development.

"Even my girls that play every game all the time, they were up cheering for the other girls that don't get to play as much," Wolting said.

Hesperia (2-5, 1-4 WMC Rivers), on the other hand, was left to take the positives it could from the game. Elenbaas lauded Emily McCallum for her defensive work on Burmeister, and on the whole he felt it was the best work the team had done on that side of the ball this season. It was unfortunate for the Panthers that the volume of turnovers Shelby forced - and the easy layups they led to - mitigated some of that work.

"Those turnovers make it harder," Elenbaas said. "You can play great defense, but if you're giving up free layups on the other end because you turn it over, sometimes the scoreboard doesn't reflect how you did in that half-court defense."