PCM girls punch first, start 2025 with win over South Hamilton

MONROE — Addison Steenhoek and Tori Lindsay have worn matching shoes the past two seasons.

The Mustang cousins were basically matching each other point-for-point, too, during the first half of the PCM girls basketball team’s victory over South Hamilton on Friday.

Lindsay scored 13 of her 18 points in the opening quarter and Steenhoek totaled 15 of her game-high 22 in the first half as the Class 3A No. 10 Mustangs downed the Hawks 58-27 during Heart of Iowa Athletic Conference play.

“Coming back off break we wanted to make sure we punched first and got an early lead,” Lindsay said. “I felt confident after those first few went down so I just kept shooting until someone stopped me.”

PCM led 22-7 after one quarter and won the second 17-8. The Mustangs outscored the Hawks 19-12 in the second half.

After South Hamilton scored the first points of the game, the Mustangs used a 9-0 run to grab control and never trailed again. Lindsay hit a jumper and buried a 3-pointer during that stretch and added two more triples in the period.

Steenhoek scored seven points in the frame, including a 3 that put the hosts up 22-7.

A 12-0 run early in the second pushed the advantage to 34-9. Steenhoek made a jumper and then canned back-to-back 3s to cap the spurt. Another Lindsay 3 and a Lindsay layup improved the margin to 39-15 at halftime.

“We got a ton of shots up over break and worked on just finding confidence at the offensive end,” PCM head girls basketball coach Sami Allison-Rodriguez said. “We hadn’t had a lot of repetition with that in a while, and it reflected in our start.

“We are still focusing on getting multiple stops and holding the other team to one shot. If we do those two things, we start to hit shots from the floor, too.”

The offense slowed in the second half, but it was mostly the product of using more clock and running more set plays.

Libby Winters scored five of her 11 points in the third and added a pair of free throws in the fourth. She finished with another double-double, tallying 11 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, two steals and four blocks in the win.

Only four Mustangs scored four points or more in the game and PCM missed 12 attempts from the free-throw line. The Mustangs are shooting 54.3 percent from the foul line this season.

Neither the fact that three players accounted for 88 percent of the team’s points nor the free-throw percentage concerns Allison-Rodriguez, Steenhoek or Lindsay at this point.

“There have been times where I was not scoring as much and someone else was,” Steenhoek said. “It just depends on the night, and the matchup was perfect for us three. Lila (Milani) and Kyra (Naeve) have had some good games, too, on other nights.”

PCM is 19-10 against South Hamilton since 2007, but the Hawks came in winners of five of the last seven. The Mustangs snapped a two-game skid in the series.

Steenhoek tallied 22 points, two rebounds and three assists and Lindsay added 18 points, four rebounds, six assists and four steals.

Lila Milani chipped in four points, five rebounds and two assists. Kyra Naeve did not score but grabbed 10 rebounds, dished out four assists and swiped five steals. Rebecca De Vries also pulled down two boards.

The Mustangs (9-1, 6-0 in the conference) shot 36.2 percent from the floor, made 8-of-25 from 3 and connected on only 8-of-20 from the foul line.

PCM turned the ball over 16 times but out-rebounded the Hawks 41-23.

“They are all capable of scoring. We wanted to knock some cobwebs off tonight,” Allison-Rodriguez said. “We were trying to get some specific looks in the second half, but it didn’t go as smoothly as we wanted it to. We were really locked in defensively though.”

Tessa Skartvedt led the Hawks (2-7, 2-4) with eight points and four rebounds and Claire Hewitt chipped in five points and five boards.

South Hamilton shot 26.5 percent from the floor, made 2-of-8 from 3 and connected on 7-of-14 from the foul line. The Hawks committed 25 turnovers.

Notes: Lindsay and Steenhoek said they work together before the season to figure out which shoes to wear that winter. Lindsay matched her other cousin, Sophia Steenhoek, her freshman season and Addison Steenhoek wore the same shoes as her sister Paige Steenhoek during her sophomore season. … The Mustangs are one of five teams in 3A with nine wins.