Humboldt girls roll past Yates Center

HUMBOLDT — Visiting Yates Center High started well enough against their old rivals from Humboldt High Tuesday evening.
The Wildcat girls got a couple of early baskets from senior forward MaKayla Jones to counter an early 3-pointer from Humboldt’s Tilar Wells.
The score was knotted at 6-6 midway through the first quarter.
Then the Lady Cub defense put down the clamps.
After allowing 6 points in the first four minutes, Humboldt allowed only 8 points the rest of the way.
The defense, mixed with some nifty ball movement, led to a 49-14 Humboldt blitz to improve the Lady Cubs to 11-2.
“They did a good job,” Humboldt head coach Aubrey Jones said. “We tried some new stuff out, and they did a good job with it.”
Humboldt’s trapping defense was especially devastating, forcing Yates Center into a series of mistakes.
The Lady Cubs ended the first quarter on a 9-0 run, and led 23-10 at the break.
The second half was more of the same.
A 13-2 Humboldt run spanning the third quarter pushed Humboldt up 36-12.
“We probably would have had more, but we got too excited at times,” Jones said. “The girls worked the ball around and did a good job of finding each other.”
The victory was the Lady Cubs’ fourth in a six-day stretch. Humboldt swept past all comers in winning the Pleasanton Midseason Invitational, that started Thursday because of weather delays.
“I figured we might be a little bit sluggish, but they came out and took care of it,” Jones said. “We’ll finally get two days of practice.”
Makaylah McCall paced a balanced Humboldt scoring attack with 14 points, followed by Wells with 11 and Rylan Wilhite with 10.
Jones paced Yates Center with 6.
Humboldt travels to Erie Friday, while Yates Center hosts Erie next Tuesday.
Yates Center (6-4-2-2—14): Proper 0-0-1-0, Rossillon 0-0-2-0, Weseloh 1-0-4-2, Cavender 0-0-1-0, Pringle 2-0-2-4, Conner 1-0-0-2, M. Jones 3-0-4-6. TOTAL: 7-0-0-14.
Humboldt (15-8-13-13—49) (FG/3pt): A. McCall 1-2-1-4, Wells 2/2-1-0-11, Myers 2-0-0-4, M. McCall 4-6-2-14, Wilhite 1/2-2-3-10, K. Johnson 1-0-0-2, Whitcomb 2-0-0-4. TOTALS: 13/4-11-6-49.