By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Six days after suffering a disappointing seven-point overtime loss to Topeka West in the opening round of the Capital City Classic, Highland Park's girls basketball team got another shot at its district rival Wednesday night on the Scots' home court.
Highland Park senior Tahtionna Broils drives to the basket in Wednesday's 50-34 win over Topeka West. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Rob Brown's Highland Park team improved to 10-3 with Wednesday's 50-34 win over Topeka West. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
And despite being without three players who normally see varsity minutes, Rob Brown's Scots took advantage of their opportunity, improving to 10-3 with a 50-34 win over the Chargers.
"I feel relieved,'' Brown said. "It's been a long week and you could see we were missing some girls tonight. Obviously, we were missing a lot, but we had some girls step up and I have a young bunch.
"We're a young group and we're just going to keep growing.''
Highland Park never trailed after jumping out in front 14-1 late in the first quarter and the Scots took a 23-12 advantage to the locker room at halftime.
Topeka West, which was coming off a solid third-place finish in the Capital City Classic, rallied to within a point at 26-25 with 3:48 left in the third quarter, but Highland Park ended the third quarter with seven straight points, including 3-pointers from sophomores Miluv Cosey and Pearmella Carter and ended the game with a 17-9 fourth quarter.
"We're getting there,'' Brown said. "I'm hoping it happens before the end of February obviously. It's been kind of a roller-coaster ride, I'll say that. It wasn't the results we wanted in the tournament. We fumbled that one to Topeka West, but it felt good to bounce back from that feeling.''
Carter led Highland Park with a game-high 23 points while senior Tahtionna Broils added nine points with a pair of 3-pointers and Cosey came off the bench to score nine points on a 3 of 4 performance from 3-point range.
Junior Imani McGlory led Topeka West (3-10) with 15 points while juniors Addaline Hall and Teairra Gonzales added eight and seven points, respectively.
Highland Park will be at home Friday to host Kansas City-Wyandotte in a Meadowlark Conference contest while Topeka West will be at home for a United Kansas Conference game against No. 5-ranked (Class 5A) Piper.
HIGHLAND PARK 50, TOPEKA WEST 34
Topeka West 5 7 13 9 -- 34
Highland Park 14 9 10 17 -- 50
Topeka West (3-10) – I. McGlory 5-17 3-4 15, VanDyke 1-9 0-0 2, Keeling 0-3 0-2 0, Hall 2-8 2-6 8, Gonzales 3-12 0-0 7, A. McGlory 1-3 0-0 2, Allen 0-7 0-0 0, Kutina 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-59 5-12 34.
Highland Park (10-3) – Grace 2-3 0-0 4, Broils 3-11 1-4 9, Rice 1-1 0-0 2, Jones 0-4 0-4 0, Sanders 1-9 1-4 3, Carter 7-19 7-11 23, Cosey 3-4 0-0 9, Paredes 0-0 0-0 0, Atkins 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 17-50 9-23 50.
3-point goals – Topeka West 5 (I. McGlory 2, Hall 2, Gonzales), Highland Park 7 (Cosey 3, Carter 2, Broils 2). Total fouls – Topeka West 15, Highland Park 9. Fouled out – none. Technical fouls – Highland Park (scorebook error).
