WH’s Belden confident her team will find the spark

With its 74-40 loss to cross-county rival Hiland on Wednesday, Dec. 27, the West Holmes Lady Knights fell into an uncharacteristic realm, that being sporting a .500 record at 4-4.

For a program that has experienced pretty much nothing but winning for many years, that record isn’t something head coach Lindsy Belden believes is acceptable, especially coming off the heels of a 39-22 defeat to Ohio Cardinal Conference foe Mansfield Senior.

“I told the girls when we get punched in the stomach, how are we going to punch back? We didn’t punch back soon enough tonight. We have to find the will to respond to challenges and punch back immediately,” Belden said.

But even after chastising her players and imploring them to find another gear in their competitive nature, she said it’s early and she fully expects her players to find their groove.

“I think we’ve made some strides in competing harder, but clearly, we aren’t there yet,” Belden said. “We have to keep working and striving to be the more aggressive and physical team. We don’t ever want to be the less physical team.”

In the Hiland contest, after trailing 39-16 at the intermission, the Lady Knights showed a real spark coming out in the third quarter to trim the lead to 18, and they played well most of the second half. Belden said that intensity has to be the case from the onset.

“We came out in the second half more focused and intense, but we have to find that competitive spirit from the start of each game,” Belden said.

Belden said practices will focus on developing that competitive spirit, the killer instinct to keep someone down when they get them down and finish off an opponent or to compete if they fall behind early.

That competitive spirit was seen in senior guard Keegan Uhl, who was held to three points through most of the first three quarters but stepped up and answered the challenge by coming to life and pouring in 12 of her team-high 14 points over the game’s final 10 minutes.

During that span her head coach could sense Uhl wanted the ball to be in her hands and wanted to take over offensively. She did, and it culminated in WHHS scoring 40 points against a team that rarely gives up that many.

This Hiland team is giving up just 25.5 points per contest, and its season high in points given up is 41. For a West Holmes team finding it hard to get into a smooth offensive rhythm, this could be the start of something positive.

“We’ve talked a lot this season about how do we find ways to score,” Belden said. “Keegan showed us she is willing to take on that role. We had some other kids who decided to put their head down and get to the rim. But we found that spark too late. We have to figure out how to play 32 minutes with that spark and not wait until it’s too late.”

The Lady Knights have found some scoring throughout the 4-4 start, including a nice 63-point effort in a win over Wooster and a 54-point performance in a win over Ashland. However, the season has been marked by struggles including a trio of games of scoring in the 20s.

“We’ve got the talent to put up numbers. We just have to believe in ourselves, play with confidence and play with passion for 32 minutes,” Belden said. “We’ll figure it out. It’s still early.”

In the Hiland game, Uhl’s 14 led the way for the Lady Knights while Briar Cline added nine and Chloe Patten scored six. Hiland got a monster game from Trish Troyer, who knocked down 29 to lead all scorers, while Joplin Yoder added 16 points and six rebounds, Mallory Stutzman scored 10 points, and Ashley Mullet added seven points while dishing out 11 assists.

That spark the head coach was looking for grew a bit brighter when the Lady Knights found success in stopping Mt. Vernon 44-37 in a game in which they had to rally from a 17-10 first-quarter deficit.