Highlands Uses Defensive Pressure to Win District Game

PHOTO: Allen Ramsey, DWCPhoto.com. Highlands junior Zoie Barth goes up for a score in a recent game. Barth scored 11 points in the 68-13 win over Dayton on Tuesday.

The Highlands Bluebirds girls basketball team struggled against a zone defense in the loss Saturday.

So on Tuesday, Highlands (3-1 overall) made sure it scored some points in transition before the visitors could set up their defense by applying a lot of ball pressure and forced the Dayton Lady Devils (2-2) into 30 turnovers on their way to a convincing 68-13 win. Highlands had 17 steals and committed just five turnovers on three Dayton steals.

Highlands saw 11 different players score as a result. Junior Zoie Barth led the way with 11 points, three rebounds, three assists and four steals. Junior Hanna Buecker followed with 10 points, a team-high four rebounds, one assist, and two steals. Junior Chloe Jansen led Highlands with six steals.

"We take a lot of pride in our defense," said Olivia Gessner, Highlands junior guard. "We always say good defense wins games, not necessarily offense so we really turned up the pressure and that helped us score on the run. We got a lot of lay-ups off it."

Highlands made 28-of-53 shots for 53 percent including 8-of-19 three-point tries for 42 percent and 4-of-9 free throws for 44 percent. Dayton made 5-of-29 shots for 17 percent including just 1-of-11 from three-point land for nine percent and both free throws. Megan Downard led Dayton with five points.

Highlands takes on Bracken County (0-4) on Saturday in the Donna Murphy Classic at Newport. Game time is 2:30 p.m.