XENIA — Legacy Christian wanted to take the ball away from Yellow Springs senior Angie Smith as much as possible.
Corinne Totty was able to step up in a big way.
Totty scored a career-high 19 points, all of which came in the second half, and Yellow Springs grabbed sole possession of first-place in the MBC with a 45-38 road win on Monday.
“She was 0-for-5 at halftime and I thought, ‘gosh we really need to get her shooting and she ended up burying shots,’” Bulldogs head coach Nick Minnich said.
After trailing 30-25 heading into the fourth quarter, Smith found Totty on three consecutive possessions outside the arc and along the right wing to open the period. Totty proceeded to connect on three-straight shots in a 64-second span to put the Bulldogs up by four.
“She had a game earlier this year where she missed close to 18 shots and she just hasn’t had this kind of game yet,” Minnich said. “She finally found it tonight. I told her in the locker room that was a game I knew would be there for her.”
Totty would score 14 points in the fourth quarter alone to help Yellow Springs (10-4, 5-0) grow its lead to as much as eight down the stretch. She also pulled in 10 rebounds to produce her fourth double-double this season.
Legacy Christian head coach Mark Combs said most game plans usually begin around guarding Smith, but the outcome was a testament to Totty and her teammate’s development and how Yellow Springs has become the league favorite.
“As I told the girls in practice, what makes [Yellow Springs] different is that they now have other girls that can score,” Combs said. “It wasn’t like our girls did not know they had other options, but tonight it was Totty‘s night and I bet if you go back and look over the course of a year that she had a unique experience. That’s how you win leagues and that’s how you win league games as you get players to step up and hit some shots and that’s what we saw tonight.”
Smith added 17, marking the second time this season she did not lead the team in points. She is now 17 points away from the school’s career scoring record.
Francis Park led Legacy Christian (6-5, 4-1) with 10 points, while Caroline Kensinger scored eight.
“I think the message to our team is that we’re young and we were playing a few good seniors and I thought their leadership tonight showed up for them,” Combs said. “The good news for our group of sophomores and freshmans is that they were right there.”
The game marked the first victory for Yellow Springs against Legacy Christian in 15 contests dating back to 2015.
Both teams exclusively employed zone defenses to force long range shots. Yellow Springs connected on seven three-point shots in the game compared to two for LCA.
