Christopher storms past Lady Yellow Jackets

By this point, Chester has probably seen enough of Christopher.

Including last week's SIJHSAA state quarterfinal matchup, Chester teams faced Christopher six times in four days.

Christopher's Autumn Gunter scored a game-high 24 points, and Chester shot an arctic 22.9 percent (11-for-48) from the field in a 51-30 loss to the Bearcats on Monday at Colbert Gymnasium.

The Bearcats improved to 5-1 against Chester at all levels, with only the Yellow Jacket freshmen's 24-10 victory last Friday as the lone blemish.

"Positive energy," said Christopher coach Seiger Shurtz on what was key for his team in the victory. "Kept the energy going, that's what gets things done. Stay positive through adversity, through the mistakes that you make.

"Stay positive, things go well."

Christopher, in its first season not co-opping with Zeigler-Royalton on the girls' side, jumped out to a 10-2 lead and had a 15-6 advantage after the first quarter of play.

The Bearcats (9-8, 4-3 Black Diamond West) increased their advantage to 22-6 with a seven-point run to start the second quarter.

"We rebounded pretty decently," said Chester coach Pat Knowles. "We just didn't shoot the ball at all. A lot of stuff we did have in the paint, we just threw it up.

"We really didn't shoot a shot, we just kinda hoped it was going in."

Alexis McMath led Chester (11-8, 4-3) with 10 points in the loss, while Kaitlyn Hoffman and Kaitlyn Dillow added seven each.

The Lady Yellow Jackets trailed 31-19 at halftime and saw the deficit balloon to 20, 42-22, late in the third quarter on a 3-pointer from Gunter.

"She got into the rhythm early," Shurtz said about Gunter, the lone senior on the Bearcats' roster. "Later on in the game, she started missing some shots, but she didn't let it bother her.

"What happens whenever a shooter doesn't have anything going, they take it to the rack. She did so, got to the line and got her confidence back."

Megan Wilson added 10 points for Christopher, which took a 19-point lead, 42-23, into the final quarter.

"I thought we'd play a little bit of a closer game with them," Knowles said. "I knew they were pretty tough, I'd seen them play, but I was just hoping we wouldn't shoot the ball that bad."

Knowles was asked his approach to Gunter, who had half of her points at halftime.

"There's not a whole lot you can do with her," he said. "I was just hoping she would give (the ball) up as much as possible, because she's probably the best guard we've played all year."

Chester will continue Black Diamond Conference play on Wednesday at Sesser-Valier before returning home to face Trico in another BDC contest on Thursday.

In the JV contest, Chester also fell to the Bearcats, 45-34. The JV Lady Yellow Jackets (5-5, 2-3 BDC West) were led by Kaitlyn Hoffman's 15 points in the loss.

Lauren Welge added seven points and Maddie Hoffman contributed five.