State-ranked Roland-Story shoots past PCM girls

MONROE — PCM head girls basketball coach Sami Allison-Rodriguez chalked up Friday’s night loss to Class 3A No. 11 Roland-Story as an off night.

The Mustangs came into the game allowing a little more than 30 points per game, but the Lady Norse scored 18 in the first quarter and never slowed down during their 72-44 road win in Heart of Iowa Athletic Conference play.

“They just got hot, and we got outplayed,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “They hit shots they needed to hit. I don’t think they are that much of a better team than we are but tonight they were. We just had an off night.”

Roland-Story made 11 3-pointers against the Mustangs one game after burying 12 in its win over Saydel. But the only other time the Lady Norse reached double-digits in makes from outside was the season opener.

The state-ranked squad came into Friday shooting only 29 percent from deep.

“They shot it way better than we were expecting,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “We came into the game thinking (Claire Truesdell) was the main 3-point shooter.”

Truesdell entered the game with 18 of the team’s 51 made 3s. But seven players drained at least one shot from downtown and four connected on two each. Nine R-S players also scored at least three points.

The first basket of the game was a Truesdell 3 and then Matilde Motta scored the next six Norse points to put the visitors in front 9-2. Motta, a foreign exchange student who leads the team in scoring, added two more buckets inside and Truesdell buried another triple to push the lead to 18-10 after one quarter.

Tori Lindsay did the best she could to keep the Mustangs close in the second. She started the period with a free throw then buried a trey to close the gap to seven.

Trailing 27-16, Lindsay ended the half with six straight points that included a jumper, a layup and two free throws.

The Mustangs trailed 27-22 at the break, but they made just 5-of-12 from the free-throw line.

“We’ve been really good from the line the past few games,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “We were just off. Sometimes you have off nights.

“We gave it our best shot, but it wasn’t enough tonight. We’ll watch the film and figure out what we can do better.”

PCM went into halftime with a little momentum, but Roland-Story took it away early in the third. The Lady Norse opened the half on a 12-2 run that included 3s from Motta and Kamryn Lande.

Jorja Teeter scored twice inside and added a free throw and Addison Steenhoek scored PCM’s final six points of the third, but the Mustangs trailed 47-33 after three.

Roland-Story (7-0, 5-0 in the conference) outscored the Mustangs 20-11 in the third and 25-11 in the fourth.

The Lady Norse opened the final frame on a 13-0 run. They made four 3s in the final period.

“We’ll go up there later in the year, we’ll learn from this film and hopefully we’ll give them a better shot next time,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “This isn’t indicative of who we are. How many offensive rebounds did we give up? That’s just not us.

“Luckily we play Tuesday and don’t have to take this loss into the break.”

Lindsay scored a team-high 14 points and grabbed three rebounds to lead PCM, while Steenhoek tallied 13 points, four rebounds and two steals.

Teeter added eight points and seven boards, Lila Milani chipped in three points, three rebounds and three assists and Rebecca De Vries grabbed seven boards.

Claire VanWyk produced five rebounds, Elle Davis corralled three boards and Kenna Grier drilled a 3 to highlight the Mustangs’ bench.

PCM (7-2, 4-1) shot 31.2 percent from the floor, made 5-of-11 from 3 and shot 9-of-22 from the foul line. The Mustangs turned the ball over 20 times.

Motta scored a game-high 19 points and Truesdell added 11.

“We are going to be disappointed, and they celebrated the win hard,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “Their coach wasn’t here and maybe that lit a fire under them.

“We gave them too many second-chance points. I felt like we took away their transition, which is usually a big part of their game. We didn’t play tendencies as well as we had been. We let kids drive right who we want to force left and we just didn’t box kids out enough.”