YELLOW SPRINGS — Tim Minnich was telling of the Legacy Christian Academy girls basketball team’s potential. “They’re loaded. I can see them going very far in the postseason, maybe even all the way,” he said.
And he was saying that before the game had even started.
The Yellow Springs coach was right in his assessment of the Legacy Christian bunch. In a battle between two of the three early-season leaders in the Metro Buckeye Conference, LCA bombed 11 3-point shots and rolled to a 61-21 win.
Legacy’s Kathleen Ahner sank five threes as part of her game-high 17-point effort, Emma Hess hit a couple treys in a 14-point night, and Maddy Combs swished four more to finish with 12 points to lead the Knights to the convincing win.
The host Bulldogs did their best to clamp down on Legacy’s leading scorer (Hess) and Emily Riddle (nine points), but the Knights showed that they simply had too much scoring depth for the younger Yellow Springs players to handle.
“Tim (Minnich) does a good job with his kids,” LCA coach Mark Combs said. “One of the things he does, is he makes sure that your primary scorer doesn’t score. You’ve got to get your secondary kids to score. So we talked about it … kids like Kathleen (Ahner) and Maddy (Combs) and Katie (Leach, seven points) had to step up.
“I was proud of how our secondary scorers became the primary scorers tonight. And defensively, we were able to shut down Smith and their other kids.”
Yellow Springs freshman Angie Smith came into Monday night’s contest leading the Metro Buckeye League in scoring at a 24.8 points-per-game clip. On pace to attempt more than 300 free throws this season, Minnich came into the game having made more free throws (49) than the MBC’s next three leading scorers (Hess, and Troy Christian teammates Sarah Johnson and Erin Schenk – 42) had attempted.
While she led the Bulldogs in scoring, Smith’s seven-point scoring output was the first time she’d been held to single digits this season.
“They play the best team half-court defense that I’ve ever seen in girls basketball,” said Minnich, who coached several of the LCA players this past summer in an AAU league. “They’re long, and they’re very well coached. Mark does a terrific job with them.”
With the win, Legacy Christian (6-1, 3-0 MBC) grabs a half-game lead in the MBC standings over Troy Christian (3-1, 2-0 MBC) which played Stebbins in a nonleague game Monday night.
The Knights and the Bulldogs (3-3, 2-1 MBC) both get back into conference action on Thursday, Dec. 13. Legacy will host Jefferson Township for a 6:45 p.m. game, while Yellow Springs travels to Kettering to take on Miami Valley at 7 p.m.
