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--> --> Dec. 11: AHS girls upend Thurston By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Mixing flashes of brilliance with streaks of ineptitude, the Ashland High girls basketball team had enough of the former to cancel out the latter Tuesday night in a 63-45 beating of Thurston, before a sparse preseason crowd at Mountain Avenue gym. Ashland outrebounded the Colts 28-18 and hit eight 3-pointers, including four by sophomore guard Hilary Huyett, en route to the home-opening victory. Huyett scored a game-high 16 points, 13 of which came in the first half, when Ashland (2-2) combined a suffocating man-to-man defense with some hot outside shooting to build a 40-17 lead. "The plan was to go inside and then go outside, but we'll take it," Ashland first-year coach Steve Humann said. The Grizzlies turned the ball over 12 times and could never get the inside game that was so effective in their first three contests going, but that didn't seem to matter thanks to Huyett and junior center Kristina Voskes, who added three 3's of her own. Senior post Marla Morin chipped in 15 points, Voskes had nine and four other Grizzlies added at least four in Ashland's most balanced game to date. "I think it was a good win for us, especially coming out of the Corvallis tournament with two losses," Grizz sophomore point guard Alysse Carlson said, referring to losses to seventh-ranked Lakeridge and ninth-ranked Crescent Valley. "I think it was a real good win that's going to raise our spirits. Right now things are flowing really good." The Grizzlies, listed in the "others receiving votes" category in Tuesday's inaugural Class 4A coaches poll (they were the third team in that category with five votes), broke out to a 20-8 lead after one quarter and outscored struggling Thurston 20-9 in the second to seize the 23-point halftime lead. Jamie Roupp's fastbreak layup off a steal with 5:45 left in the third gave Ashland its biggest lead of the night, 44-19, and the Colts never got closer than 16 the rest of the way. Thurston forward Ashley Sequeira, a 6-0 senior, led the Colts with 16 points and helped clog up the middle defensively against Morin, who was held to five field goals. Facing a stiff inside defense, the Grizzlies continued to show their offensive versatility. When Huyett wasn't sinking long bombs with her signature high-arching shot, Carlson was slashing to the basket. When that wasn't working, the Grizzlies worked the ball around the outside until somebody was open - and they usually were. Meanwhile, Thurston couldn't crack Ashland's scrambling, hustling defense and often settled for contested jumpers. The result: Thurston hit 17 field goals on 47 attempts, a woeful 36 percent clip, while turning the ball over 15 times - 11 in the first half. Ashland hit 23 of 59 shots (39 percent), including 14 of 31 in the first half, and finished with 12 turnovers, but just five in the first half when the outcome was in doubt. "I think it just kind of hit them unexpected," Morin said. "They didn't think that we were going to play that aggressive of a man-to-man (defense). They thought we were going to go into a zone and kind of let them take the ball wherever they wanted to and they kind of got caught off guard by our aggressiveness." PHS Swimming Phoenix set two boys and one girls school record and handily won the boys portion of a three-way swim meet Tuesday at the Southern Oregon University pool. The Pirate boys scored 148 points to outdistance Reedsport (73) and North Valley (65). North Valley didn't win a single event but claimed the girls team victory with 113 points, four better than runner-up Phoenix. Justin Heath was in on two records for Phoenix. He swam the 100-yard freestyle in 52.14 seconds, breaking the 1998 record of 52.46 set by Michael Oxendine. He also was on the 200 medley relay team with Jeff Stone, KC Cloyd and Jacob Nelson that finished in 1:51.40, better than a 1998 time of 1:51.76. On the girls side, Phoenix freshman Kelsey Nelson set a record for the third time when she did the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.62, bettering Kristen Heath's 1999 mark of 1:18.94. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing