Reloaded Alleman tames Princeton once again

PRINCETON - The Princeton Tigresses found a Rock Island Alleman team that visited Prouty Gym Saturday evening to be one that has simply reloaded from their meeting a year ago in the regional championship.

The Pioneers went on a 10-0 run to end the first quarter and outscored the Tigresses 13-7 in the second quarter to take a 32-15 halftime lead on the way to a runaway 58-33 victory.

Alleman beat PHS 58-27 in last year’s regional finals in Rock Island.

“They graduated quite a bit, but obviously bring back a lot of good players, too,” PHS coach Tiffany Gonigam. “They’re a very good team and play much different competition than we do. Night in and night out (in the Western Big Six), that’s a different style of ball.

“I’d like to think that we didn’t do ourselves any favors. I think we could have played them a little closer than we did. I think we got down on ourselves easy. There were some balls that I watched bounce across the floor that we could have given ourselves a better chance, and that’s a little disappointing.”

The Tigresses (11-7) stayed close only for the first four minutes of the game.

Junior point guard Camryn Driscoll scored on a layup as the result of a team steal on the press, and Olivia Mattingly hit a jumper just inside the arc from the top of the key to tie the game at 6-6. Reese Reviglio scored in the post on a pass from Driscoll to put PHS down by just one at 9-8.

Then the Pioneers (17-6) took off with their running game and never stopped.

Megan Hulke scored on a drive and then on the break followed by a runout by Alyssa Brinkman. Adalynn Voss hit a jumper and Brinkman scored again on putback to cap the Pioneers' 10-0 run to take a 19-8 lead at quarter’s end.

Freshman Payton Brandt scored on a putback to open the second quarter and draw the Tigresses within 19-10, but they would trail by double digits the rest of the way.

Driscoll said the Pioneers beat the Tigresses at their own game.

“They were very good in transition and I feel like they just knew how to get it down the court,” she said. “Transition is definitely one of our strong suits and they were doing the same thing.”

Gonigam said the Tigresses can’t dwell on the loss with some tough games ahead.

“The thing is, at this time of year, and the schedule we’ve built for ourselves this year, we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves,” she said. “We have some big games coming up next week at Ottawa and Kewanee and then Sherrard, who’s ranked in state, comes to town next Saturday. These are the kind of games we want. We want to play tough competition and be exposed to what we need to do to get better.”

Driscoll led the Tigresses (11-7) with 11 points with Brandt (six points) and Reviglio (five) combining for 11 more.

Voss, who reached the 1,000-point mark recently, led the Pioneers with 12 points while Lilli Lempke and Brinkman added 10 each.

PHS junior Keighley Davis' chase to 1,000 career points was put on hold for another night. She needed nine points, but managed just two points on 1-9 shooting from the field, going 0-2 at the free throw line, with a basket early in the third quarter.

“It’s going to happen next game. I really want it to,” Driscoll said. “I’m so excited for her to get it. We’ve been waiting for it for awhile and it’s going to come next game.”

“We look forward to celebrating a big milestone with her in the future. It will happen,” Gonigam said. “They’re a good team and shots were just hard to come by tonight.”

Davis will get her next shot at her milestone mark Tuesday when the Tigresses visit Ottawa on the front end of a girls-boys doubleheader at historic Kingman Gymnasium.