By DON EDEN
Niles Daily Star

The weather outside was frightening as it snowed and snowed, but inside Brandywine High School it was alumnus Josh Hood hardly dying by downing River Valley 55-11 in his inaugural at home as girls basketball coach.

A sign that read “Welcome to the HOOD” was for the loyal Bobcat fans as sophomore Carlie Newman dribbled through the entire River Valley defense for a driving layup just 20 seconds into the game to begin the onslaught. The scoreboard showed 12-1 at 5:15 before the visitors could even call timeout and couldn’t even manage a shot from the field until a minute later.

“We do a good job getting off to a fast start by setting the tempo in the beginning of every game so far,” noted Hood. “It was exciting and fun to be here on the sideline and is a pleasure to work with these girls.”

Brandywine (4-0) led 18-2 after the first eight minutes and were ahead 22-2 before River Valley (0-3) senior Chelsea Baker scored the Mustangs’ first field goal. The halftime score was 38-5 before the many male Bobcats could try their shots at halfcourt for a small donation.

“We stressed last week on our bigs to capitalize and Madison Pellow, Kelsey Prestly, Morgan Smallwood and Lauren Leonard all did a really good job of finishing tonight,” stated Hood.

Newman and Smallwood (junior) each had 10 points at intermission with the junior Leonard making three baskets from close range to lead the Lady Bobcats, who as a team made 19 of 28 shots. Baker’s shot was the only good basket by River Valley on 11 attempts as they managed to turn the ball over on 17 possessions.

Junior Cassi Bronson scored both of the points by the visitors in the third stanza and found the bottom of the net again in the final stanza to have more points (six) than her teammates combined.

“It was a good home opener win, but disappointed in our fouling far away from the basket,” indicated Hood. “These girls are very unselfish and don’t worry about individual stats, so we can reach our team goals.

Leading Brandywine with a dozen points apiece were Smallwood and classmate Prestly as another pair of juniors in Teila Smith and Leonard each grabbed five rebounds.

“We are looking to play fast or get the ball down low for the big girls to score,” said senior point guard Nicole Newman. “This being my last year it is big to win conference and be unbeaten at 6-0 before Christmas.”

Also winning handily was the Bobcat junior varsity with a 46-10 thumping as sophomore D’Nisha Zona scored 16 to lead the victors. Freshmen Victoria Knight and Jenna Smith tallied 10 and eight points respectively.

RIVER VALLEY 11
Kourtney Krumrie  0 0-0; Chelsea Baker 1 0-1 2; Cassi Bronson 2 2-6 6; Katie Peterson 0 1-2 1; Carmen Stoepker 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 4 3-11 11
BRANDYWINE 55
Carlie Newman 5 0-2 10; Nicole Newman 1 0-0 2; Mackenzie Shelton 2 0-0 4; Kelsey Prestly 6 0-0 12; Morgan Smallwood 6 0-1 12; Teila Smith 1 0-2 2; Lauren Leonard 4 0-0 8; Madison Pellow 2 1-3 5. TOTALS: 27 1-8 55

River Valley 2 5 7 11
Brandywine 18 38 47 55
3-point baskets: None. Total fouls: River Valley 9, Brandywine 11. Fouled out: None. Varsity records: River Valley 0-3, Brandywine 4-0