Thunder strikes the Wolves in girls basketball action

By Kenny Varner
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: January 6, 2015

STATE COLLEGE – What started out as a nailbiter turned out to be an easy victory Tuesday when the Belleville Mennonite girls traveled to State College to go head-to-head with conference rival St. Joseph.

The Thunder’s slow start had them looking at a slim 25-16 advantage against the scrappy Wolves.

But in the second half, Belleville came out with something to prove, outscoring their opponent 42-4 in the final two stanzas for the 67-20 victory.

“The girls came out slow to start the game. We were playing their style of game. They (St. Joseph) has a very young team but I think they will get there someday. They have a lot of good players,” Belleville coach Ally Zook said. “The girls did well and they recovered.”

Leading the way for the Thunder in the contest was Grace Peachey. Peachey finished with a game-high 27-point performance and was also strong on crashing the boards, finishing with a double-double.

Another teammate that had a strong game came from the forward position. Molly Morgan also finished in double digits with a 15-point effort. Melissa Yoder rounded out the high scorers finishing with 11. Most of Yoder’s baskets came in the final quarter.

In the first quarter, Belleville scored only eight points. Five of those eight came from the inside game of Grace Peachey while Leah Peachey tallied three.

Aubry Weiss got the scoring started for the scrappy Wolves team, finishing the period with a 4-point effort while teammate Courtney Gregory tallied the other field goal.

When the second period got underway, the Thunder saw themselves ahead by just one bucket.

Belleville’s offense started to warm up in the second quarter as they were able to tally 17 points while their defense held the home team to 10.

Going into the intermission, Belleville led by just nine points.

Defensively, the Thunders’ defense roared into the second half, allowing just four points in the third quarter.

Offensively, Belleville picked it up a notch and went right to the heart of the Wolves defense for a count of 20.

Leading the charge once again was Grace Peachey, scoring nine points. Morgan also got her game going as well, posting a 6-point effort as the Thunder took a close 25-16 game to a 45-20 advantage with the teams going into the final stanza.

From there, the Thunder rolled and the lightning struck in the fourth quarter.

Not only was Belleville able to put 22 more points onto the scoreboard but its defensive game was completely on lockdown, allowing no baskets in the final eight minutes en route to the victory.

Yoder led all scorers with nine in the period while Morgan had five and Anju Takenhashi and Grace Peachey both picked up a hard earned four points.

The win was the Thunders third of the season while sporting five defeats.