FORTVILLE — Slow starts are a trend this season for the Mt. Vernon girls basketball team, but so is figuring out how to win no matter what.
Opening their game against Class 4A Westfield 0-for-7 from the field on Wednesday night, the Marauders buried their first bucket 4 minutes, 29 seconds into the first quarter and solved the riddle to win their fifth straight, 46-42.
Three Marauders scored in double figures, led by a team-high 12 points from Abby Worley and Lexi Shelton, who came off the bench, to keep Mt. Vernon a perfect 2-0 at home.
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Mt. Vernon hasn’t lost a game since Nov. 9, turning a 1-1 start to the year into a a streak nearly identical to a year ago when the Marauders rattled off nine straight after a similar beginning.
“They have found ways to win, and they fight. We just need to figure how to start games the same way,” Marauders head coach Julie Shelton said. “A lot of times, in I don’t know how many of those games (we won), we were always down or barely up at halftime and have a better second half, but that’s usually because we do figure out what we need to do to be able to win.”
The Marauders trailed 7-6 after the first quarter and 17-13 by halftime while contending with a pair of six-point deficits.
In the second half, senior Sydnee Perry tied the game twice at 21-all with a pair of free-throws with 3:40 left in the third quarter, and knotted up the game 23-all 1:01 later with a layup.
Once the Marauders closed the gap, they took the lead and never relinquished it. Mt. Vernon shot 6-of-27 in the first half at 22 percent from the field before improving to 7-for-16 (43 percent) in the final 16 minutes.
The key was defense, which led to eight Westfield (4-4) turnovers in the second half, and drawing contact.
“They were pretty athletic and we weren’t hitting outside shots. We had to be more aggressive and try to get to the free-throw line or get to the rim,” Shelton said.
The strategy paid off as Mt. Vernon converted 20-for-20 foul shots, including 19-for-19 in the second half. The move helped compensate for their perimeter shooting that has been hovering 30 percent this season.
“We should be a really good 3-point shooting team. I have three kids back that shot 40 percent or better on the year last year from the 3, but this year, we just are not hitting them,” Shelton said. “We’re going to have not settle for it and try to attack and hope by mid-season, we’re hitting them, and then we’ll have both parts of our game going.”
Mt. Vernon went 0-for-9 from 3-point range, but Worley (8-for-8 from the free-throw line), Perry (4-for-4) and Lexi Shelton (5-for-13 from the field) made up for the lackluster production elsewhere.
Perry finished with 10 points and five rebounds. Olivia Yeley had six points and eight rebounds, while Lexi Shelton battled through an injury to pull down eight rebounds while scoring 7 second-half points.
“It was a little frustrating with no shots falling, but I knew if our defense was there, our offense would follow,” Perry said. “(The 3-pointers) didn’t want to fall tonight. We just knew we had to drive and draw some fouls.
“We’ve really been keying on (free-throw shooting), being able to focus in hard situations. When you’re tired, you still have to hit them because they really make a difference in a game.”
Up 27-25 after the third quarter, the Marauders relied on Worley and Shelton to build their cushion.
Shelton drew an and-1 that extended the lead 32-27 with 5:08 remaining in the game, and Worley stole the ball and sank a transition bucket to make it 34-27.
Westfield cut the margin to four points twice late behind an 11-point performance by sophomore Alyssa Crockett and a game-high 18 points from senior Ava Henson, but a Shelton shot in the post gave Mt. Vernon a 42-39 lead with 48.0 seconds left.
Yeley and Tessa Freeman capped the final 23.6 seconds with four foul shots to maintain the Marauders’ seven-point margin until Henson hit a 3-pointer at the end.
“We’ve been learning a lot because we’ve been struggling to get going, and we know we just need to push through to get the win and it’s a big deal when we do get those wins, especially, when we do start like this,” Perry said. “Starting to get back on track like we were last year is a big deal for us right now.”
The defending sectional champion Marauders (6-1) open Hoosier Heritage Conference play on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. when they host rival Pendleton Heights.
