~by Dustin Teays for The Scranton Journal
The Rolling Valley Conference has no shortage of tough opponents, and the Paton-Churdan Rockets’ girls basketball team faced two of them last week.
As the regular season is coming to a close, the Rockets have shown immense improvement all season long, especially considering how young the team is overall. This past week, the Rockets faced the Coon Rapids-Bayard Crusaders Feb. 3, where they fell 52-21, and then the Exira-EHK Spartans Feb. 4, where they lost 59-17.
In their game against the Crusaders, a stifling defense employed by Coon Rapids-Bayard led to 36 turnovers for the Rockets. The Rockets shot just 28.6 percent from the field but rebounded well with 25 boards and got after the ball on their own with 12 steals to their name.
Kaliyah Minnihan again showed why her sophomore campaign has been going so well, with a team-high of 11 points and nine rebounds. Grace Cullum had six points and five rebounds, and Holly Miller had four points and four rebounds.
Against Exira-EHK, the Spartans had a massive second quarter, outscoring the Rockets 30-3. Going into halftime, the Rockets were down 41-11 and could not recover from that large deficit but battled the entire game. Turnovers did play a role in this game as the Rockets had 38 which limited their offensive possessions and 21 of those turnovers were steals by Exira-EHK.
Alivya Smith reprised her role in scoring with a team-high eight points for the Rockets, and Ella Tasler had four, with Minnihan scoring three and Cullum scoring two. Smith led in rebounds with five, Tasler and Ava Minnehan were tied for second with three, and Shianne Teed, Minnihan, and Cullum each had two.
This week will mark the conclusion of the regular season for the Rockets, and the season has been successful compared to past seasons.
This season saw them win their first game since February of 2023, and they’ve grown all season long and will look to carry that growth over into their first postseason game.
This week was expected to feature their last regular season game in a game against the Woodbine Tigers on Monday at 6 p.m.
Then they were expected to face St. Edmond on Thursday in Class 1A Region 3 action. In games played since 2019, the Rockets are 2-0 with a 47-38 win over the Gaels in 2019 and a 57-36 win in 2020. The winner of that game will go on to face the winner of River Valley and Ar-We-Va.
