By JIM GRIES
OSKALOOSA — Oskaloosa girls basketball coach Burdette Brown knew he had to try and figure out a way to contain Mount Pleasant sophomore guard Taylor Shull from dominating the non-conference game Friday night.
He should have been more worried how the Panthers were going to keep Indian sophomore MacKenzie Gott off the backboards.
All the Oskaloosa center did was record an intriguing triple-double in setting a school mark for rebounds in a game. She had 24 points and a school-record 31 rebounds — 15 offensive and 16 defensive — while teammate Samantha Lowry added 11 points and 11 rebounds in the team’s 62-55 loss to the Panthers.
Gott broke the previous record of 23 rebounds set by Danielle Flander on Jan. 21, 2005 against Grinnell.
Brown credits the team’s overall play in allowing Gott to get those 31 rebounds.
“She was on fire, but it was an overall team effort that helped her getting the ball to her and she didn’t give up on the boards tonight,” he said. “That was her best effort we’ve seen out of her on both ends of the court. She did a great job for us tonight.”
Gott had no idea she would dominate the rebounding numbers like she did.
“I just gave it my all tonight,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. My outcome came out pretty good. I boxed out really well and took it to them. It feels really good to get the record.”
The Indians (2-17) held a 16-7 lead after the first quarter as Gott had a pair of offensive put backs and Lowry had seven points to spur the team.
Lowry also had the main responsibility to guarding Shull, who came into the game averaging 19 points a game.
Lowry didn’t allow Shull to get a basket until the 3:25 mark of the second quarter which made it 22-15 in favor of the Indians,
MaKena Veldhuizen drove the lane for a basket and Gott put in another offensive rebound for a bucket to increase the lead to 26-15.
Shull, after finally getting her first shot to go through the basket, found her shooting eye and got Mount Pleasant back in the game. She had a 3-pointer a little more than a minute later, then had a steal that led to a basket. Shull the free throw after getting fouled on the play, but scored on the offensive put back to close out the first half with nine points n a span of 2 minutes to get the Panthers to within 26-22.
Samantha Allgood’s bucket with 41 seconds left until halftime appear to give the Indians a lead heading into the locker room, but the Panthers had other ideas.
Back-to-back 3s from Steph Myers and MaKenzie Sartorius, who had hers beating the second-quarter buzzer, tied the game at 28.
“Sam Lowry did a great job on Shull,” Brown said. “Then she got on fire after that. She’s a great player and we did everything we could to stop her. Early on we were able to shut her down, but not enough horses and too much time and it caught up with us. The girls gave a great effort tonight.”
Mount Pleasant gained control of the game in the third quarter as Shull and Alissa Maxwell accounted for all 18 points. Maxwell knocked down three 3-pointers as she tallied 11 points while Shull contributed seven as the Panthers took a 46-38 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Indians were able to trim the deficit to 46-42 on a pair of buckets by Gott, but Sarah Pieper hit a 3 to extend the Panther lead to seven and Oskaloosa couldn’t recover.
Oskaloosa closes out the road portion of its season Tuesday night at Knoxville, which is ranked 12th in Class 2A.
Mount Pleasant 62, Oskaloosa 55
MP 7 21 18 16 — 62
Osky 16 12 10 17 — 55
MOUNT PLEASANT (62) — Taylor Shull 8 5-7 24, Alissa Maxwell 5 0-0 13, Steph Myers 4 1-2 11, MaKenzie Sartorius 3 0-3 6, Katelyn Fry 0 0-0 0, Sarah Pieper 2 1-2 4, Natalie Booton 2 0-0 4/ Totals 22 7-14 62.
3-point goals — 11 (Shull 3, Maxwell 3, Myers 2, Sartorius 2, Pieper). Total fouls — 17. Turnovers — 18.
OSKALOOSA (55) — Samantha Lowry 3-10 4-9 11, MaKena Veldhuizen 2-8 1-2 5, Samantha Allgood 3-9 0-0 6, Cortney Major 1-5 2-2 4, MacKenzie Gott 12-29 0-1 24, Kayley Keller 0-0 0-0 0, Brooke VanHouweling 0-1 0-0 0, Kesley Kollasch 1-1 0-0 3, Dana Van Renterghem 1-1 0-1 2, Kristelle Slycord 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-64 7-15 55.
3-point goals — 2-8 (Lowry 1-2, Kollasch 1-1, Veldhuizen 0-3, Allgood 0-2). Rebounds — 53 (Gott 31, Lowry 11, Allgood 5, Major 3, Van Renterghem 2, Veldhuizen). Assists —10 (Veldhuizen 4, Lowry 3, Allgood, Major, Van Renterghem). Steals — 6 (Lowry 3, Veldhuizen 2, Van Houweling). Block — 1 (Veldhuizen). Fouled out — Major. Total fouls — 17. Turnovers — 17.
