Lady Stars cruise to Sagamore Conference win — Crawfordsville falls to Western Boone 80-20

Dover — There was never any doubt in the outcome of Tuesday night’s Sagamore Conference girls basketball showdown between Western Boone and Crawfordsville. The Lady Stars has defeated the Athenians 60-27 earlier in the season, and any thoughts of a reversal of the outcome were squashed when WeBo took a 27-3 lead after a quarter. But, with the sectional right around the corner, the Lady Stars were able to focus on improving themselves and took a step in that direction in an 80-20 victory against Crawfordsville. “Our main goal was just to get better tonight,” Western Boone head coach Megan Alexander said. “When looking at our overall season stats, things we have been giving up like turnovers and rebounds, we wanted to fix that. We are coming into a tough part of our schedule, the sectional is right around the corner and we have to prepare every day for teams like Cloverdale and South Putnam that we could see in the sectional. We have to make sure that we are improving every game.” The Stars led 47-6 at the half, and never led by less than 35 in the second half. The Athenians best quarter of the game came in the third, when they scored 12 of their 20 points, getting six points from Lauren Kellerman and four from Olivia Reed, but the Stars held the Athenians to just two points in the final eight minutes. “With Crawfordsville, they are an up-and-coming program and a good underclassmen, so it gave us a different look than we see every day against our JV,” Alexander said. “We value games like this, because we are going against other varsity programs that are sometimes more organized and we can try out different things and see how they work in a game situation. It is good to be able to execute in a game like that.” Madison Jones led the Stars with 26 points, with Lauryn Florey adding 19. Kara Brewer had 14, Tori Wilkinson had eight and Hillary Reed had six. “We had a lot of girls make plays today,” Alexander said. “If we are going to make any kind of a run in the post-season, we can’t be a one-man show. And Madison probably realizes that more than any of these girls, because she has the most experience. It was good to see Tori rebounding and controlling the paint the way she can and she is just starting to hit her stride. Kara is hitting, Lauryn is starting to get her rhythm, and Hillary and Emily Voils are chipping in too.” The Stars are now 11-7 on the year, and 3-1 in the Sagamore Conference. They have another conference game Friday at 6 p.m. at home against Frankfort. Crawfordsville, now 2-15 and 0-5 in the Sagamore, hosts Riverton Parke Thursday. “We are going to have a couple days of practice to work on a couple different sets that we are working on,” Alexander said. “We are trying to add different wrinkles and looks to see what our best ‘go-to’ plays are. Against Frankfort, we are coming in with the same mindset where the scoreboard doesn’t matter, we just want to get better. It is a like an elevated practice, so we can improve ourselves heading into the sectional.”