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Rice is nice

Abby Rice leads Silver Creek to 50-29 victory over Gowanda

Gowanda’s Nicole Whalen (12) attempts to drive by Silver Creek’s Jaylah Cossin (5).

GOWANDA — With Gowanda superstar Miya Scanlan out of the lineup due to injury, it wasn’t whether Silver Creek would win, but rather by how much. The answer to that question was 21 points, Silver Creek avenged its loss to the Lady Panthers earlier this season with a 50-29 Section VI Division 1 East girls basketball victory at Gowanda High School, Thursday night.

Without superstar Miya Scanlan the Lady Panthers were going to need another player to step up and try to fill her shoes. When playing Scanlan has the ball in her hands for most of the game as she orchestrates the offense and without her Gowanda relied on Nicole Whalen at point guard. Whalen did fine with ball handling, but very few people in the county would be able to replicate Miya’s scoring production and it showed.

“We had a couple of freshmen and JV players that we brought up,” Gowanda head coach Ross John said about trying to fill the void left by the injured Miya Scanlan. “I think they showed real promise, but it does hurt having Miya not handling the ball because she kind of did it all for us. Scoring, handling the ball, passing, blocking shots, but it is what it is.”

Gowanda struggled in the first quarter to find baskets, while Silver Creek was operating like a well oiled machine. With Silver Creek’s superstar Abby Rice still in the lineup, the Black Knights had no trouble jumping out to an early. Silver Creek’s first seven points all went through Rice as they went up 7-2 early.

Already up 13-2 after the first quarter, the Black Knights offense only continued to click as they had their best offensive quarter in the second period. Three different Black Knights hit a shot from beyond the arc, Libby Lawton, Kaylee Hutchison and Rice. Before you could blink, Silver Creek managed to get its lead up to 20.

Lady Black Knight Abby Rice (23) gets ready to dish a pass in Silver Creek’s 50-29 victory over the Lady Panthers on Thursday night.

Even with the big deficit, Gowanda never gave up in the first half and continued to improve in the second quarter. Cece Young hit a shot from beyond the arc and Crissa Scanlan found the basket again, but even with the improvements there was no chance they’d keep up with the Silver Creek offense.

At halftime Silver Creek had a big 30-9 lead.

Coming out of the break, Young once again hit another early 3-pointer for the Lady Panthers as they scored the first five of the quarter. Gowanda’s offense had its best quarter out of the break as four different scorers made their way to the scoresheet. While on the other hand, Silver Creek struggled to get its offense going again. Silver Creek was outscored 12-10 in the quarter.

“I made a ton of rotations and substitutions to get girls in and I think partly because of that didn’t get any rhythm or flow in the game,” stated Silver Creek head coach Tammy Rice. “Definitely not in the second half, we didn’t score much, in the entire third quarter we were stagnant, slow to move on offense and we were missing from the outside and Gowanda’s big so they were getting every missed shot.”

In the final quarter both teams looked as if they knew the game was already done, the offensive highlight of the quarter was two 3-pointers from Rice that gave her a total of five throughout the game. At the final buzzer of the regular season for both teams it was Silver Creek 50, Gowanda 29.

“She has been working on her 3-point shot,” Coach Rice said of Rice. “She’s switched to a rhythm shot and so when the rhythm is on she has very percentage shooting. She has had games where the rhythm has been off and she struggles. Tonight I thought she was hitting some of those outside shots, but not finishing at the rim like she typically can.”

The Black Knights offense was led by Rice with 19 points, six assists, 10 rebounds and four steals, Kiera Brennan had 15 points and four rebounds and Chloe Barrett grabbed five rebounds.

Gowanda was led by Laura Stevens with eight points, Crissa Scanlan with seven and Cece Young had six courtesy of two 3-point shots.

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Coach John said about Young hitting 3-point shots. “She is a catch and shoot player and we’ve got to find ways to move her into spots to get kick outs to her. That’s what we try to tell her first half she was crowding a little bit and she wasn’t getting enough space and a clear launch.”

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