Elkhart Times

McAllister and Boots score season-highs as Foresters earn eight seed in conference tournament

Four Maple Leafs women's basketball players scored in double figures during their final game of the 2022-2023 season on Wednesday night. After Goshen won at Huntington earlier in the year, the Foresters won in Ruth Gunden Gymnasium 82-72.

Huntington jumped to a quick 9-2 lead, but Goshen scored six straight to make it 9-8. The Maple Leafs took a brief lead at 12-10, and Huntington led 26-20 at the end of the first quarter. The Foresters kept the lead for the entire second quarter but only built an advantage up to seven points. They had 44 points at the half - already surpassing the 42-point total that the Leafs held them to in their previous meeting.

By the half, both teams shot over 50%, but the Leafs had yet to hit a three-pointer. Zion Neat had ten points at the break.

A three-pointer from Ali Vaughn gave the Foresters their first double-digit lead in the third, but the Leafs followed with an 11-3 run to cut the lead to two. Then Huntington ended the quarter on an 8-3 run.

The momentum swung back toward Goshen after they found themselves down 72-59. GC scored the following 11 points, capped off by a basket from Sophia Eli as she twisted and turned past a defender. But Goshen couldn't get past the two-point deficit for the second time in the game, and the Foresters ended the game on a 10-2 run. Konnor Gambrell was fouled and made her shot and the accompanying free throw that gave the visitors a five-point lead that they didn't look back on.

Zion Neat, Sophia Eli, Sa'drea Rougeau and Montasia McAllister all scored in double figures for Goshen. It is the fourth time this season that the team has had four players with 10+ points in a game. Emme Boots played a career-high 19 minutes and had a season-high seven points. McAllister's ten points were a season-high as well. Eli scored in double figures for the third straight game - she had done it four times in her career before that.

While the Maple Leafs had a better field goal percentage, Huntington made seven threes compared to one for Goshen and shot 21-24 at the free-throw line. Gambrell finished with 27 points and made ten of her 13 shots.

Huntington locked up the number eight seed in the Crossroads League tournament with the win and will travel to Indiana Wesleyan for a quarterfinal next Tuesday at 7:00 pm. Their win also eliminated Bethel from the league tournament. Goshen concluded the season with a 7-21 record and conference wins against Huntington and Mount Vernon Nazarene.

Original source can be found here.