New Martin girls’ varsity basketball coach Ben Schipper apparently doesn’t shrink away from a challenge.
After coaching junior varsity boys’ basketball for three seasons at his alma mater, he is guiding a Lady Clippers’ team with Great Expectations. He took the position last May when veteran coach Doug MacVean decided to retire.
He is inheriting a team that went 17-4 overall and copped a district tournament championship in MacVean’s last campaign, and get this, all players are returning.
Schipper now is 2-0 at the helm and he’s getting a lot of help from his assistant coach, Robert VanDenBerg, who’s been there, done that.
The Lady Clippers opened their season with a 43-31 victory over Galesburg-Augusta Tuesday night. Senior pivot Faith Guritz had 11 points and Jaclyn Jildebrand and Kiaya Warner added eight apiece.
Martin Friday night won its home debut 43-26 over Bloomingdale after half a first quarter offensive performance that was nothing short of bloody awful. It failed to make a field goal in almost the first four minutes and fell behind 7-1 when the Cardinals’ Olasia Moss drilled a three-pointer. If it wasn’t for Warner’s amazing three steals in the first two minutes, it could’ve been a lot worse.
But Schipper called a timeout and let his talented ballplayers regroup.
Guritz, in her fourth year as a varsity starter, nailed her team’s first basket with 3:20 left in the opening period and Jordyn Seizer scored shortly afterward to knot the score at 9-9.
The rest of the evening wasn’t pleasant for Bloomingdale.
Hildebrand drove to the iron for a layup early in the second quarter and was fouled, swishing the free toss to give her teammates a three-point lead they never relinquished. The tie-breaker was started by Gracie Shettler on a nifty give-and-go.
Shettler wound up playing the finest game of her hoops career thus far, scoring seven points, four consecutively after the Cardinals threatened to come back early in the third quarter.
Martin led only 19-15 at intermission, but Guritz went to work inside and Hildebrand and Bri Warner took the ball on the run for layups. Suddenly, the Clippers were up 26-15 and the visiting team never recovered.
The Cardinals frantically went to a three-quarters zone press, but the ball-handling skills and good passing decisions by Kiya Warner, Hildebrand and Guritz rendered it ineffective. It was Shettler who made them pay for the pressure with a couple of easy layups.
Bloomingdale scored only four points in the third period, on two free throws and a basket by Kallie Harrison. And the Clippers entered the final quarter with a 32-19 advantage.
Martin didn’t really let up much, except when Guritz was retired to the sideline for the last two minutes with a bloody nose.
Guritz led all scorers with 18 points, Hidebrand chipped in nine. Harrison was a virtual one-gal show offensively for the Cardinals with 16 points.
A lot of credit had to go to the Martin defense, which after that 7-1 miserable start, went on an 18-4 run and didn’t allow Bloomingdale to score in double figured in any of the four quarters.
Bloomingdale, incidentally, lost its season opener 45-42 last Tuesday at Delton.
