Storm christen new tourney

MANLIUS – The Bureau Valley Storm girls started the season off right playing in the inaugural Bureau Valley Storm Girls Holiday Tourney as they turned a 12-4 first quarter lead into a 70-9 win over the Putnam County Panthers.

“I thought that we did a good job executing,” BV coach Jeff Ohlson said. “We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, but that will come. I think that a lot of that early in the first quarter was nerves. I saw us missing shots that we make ... We ran what we wanted to run and got some things done that we wanted to do.”

The Storm did get off to a somewhat slow start, and the Panthers took the early 2-0 lead on the first shot of the game. Torri Peterson hit for three the old-fashioned way with 6:24 to play in the opener, and the Storm did not trail again. The first quarter ended with a 9-2 Storm run to put it up 12-4.

The second quarter was all Storm, as the shots began to fall, led by Melanie Thompson with 10 of her game-high 15 points, as BV ran 22-0 to take a 34-4 lead into halftime. As the offense found its stride in the second, the Storm also dominated at the other end of the floor, forcing 13 Panther turnovers, for a total of 24 in the first half.

“We took advantage of turnovers when they gave them to us,” Ohlson said. “We didn’t press at all. We just played our half-court man most of the time mixed up with a little zone. We just got done what we needed to get done.”

After the intermission, the Storm continued to dominate the game. Lauren Hasbrook led the third quarter charge as she drew even with Thompson at 15 before checking out of the game in favor of the Storm bench.

Following the Storm’s 27-3 run through the third quarter to build the lead to 61-7, the tournament’s mercy rule was evoked, and the continuous clock ran through the fourth quarter.

In addition to Thompson and Hasbrook, sophomores Torri Peterson and Sam Neahring hit double figures in scoring with 11 and 10 points respectively. The Storm distributed its 34 rebounds on the night evenly with Thompson leading the way with seven.