TAYLORVILLE — Of the six member schools in the Apollo Conference, three of them are the cream of the crop on the girls basketball side.
Effingham, Mt. Zion and Taylorville are all looking to win a conference championship this season, with Lincoln moving to the Central State Eight.
The Flaming Hearts and Lady Tornadoes met on Tuesday night at Taylorville High School in the first conference matchup for the guests.
The end result didn’t go in the visitors’ favor, however.
Effingham (5-1, 0-1 Apollo Conference) lost 58-46.
“We knew with their size, they’d be tough to guard,” head coach Jeff Schafer said. “Both teams have a lot of experience back. They’re a really good basketball team, but the things we worked on in practice, this is one of the few times we didn’t take them into the game. We didn’t get the ball into the high-post against the zone; we didn’t get it in there off the dribble and that was the most disappointing part.”
Effingham led 13-11 after the first quarter.
Mazie Fleming started the scoring for Taylorville with a layup.
Lady Tornadoes’ Addison Tarr then hit a pair of free throws before the Hearts’ Sidney Donaldson made a reverse jump shot.
Bella Austin then hit a three-pointer with 4:50 left to give Effingham the lead, 5-4.
Taylorville’s Aubrey Kietzman responded with a three of her own to put the Lady Tornadoes back in front, 7-5.
Alyssa Martin tied the game after making a pair of free throws before Taylorville’s Olivia Woodward hit a layup to push the hosts ahead, 9-7, with 3:32 remaining.
Effingham’s Bria Beals then hit one of her two free throw attempts to cut the deficit to one point before Austin knocked down her second three-pointer to put the Hearts in front, 11-9, with 1:36 left.
The Lady Tornadoes would then tie the game again, but Martin answered with a layup while drawing the foul to make it 13-11 with 20 seconds left. She would miss her free throw attempt, though, leaving the score at 13-11.
Fleming then opened the second quarter just as she did the first — with a layup — to tie the contest.
Kyleigh Heimsness followed with an and-one layup off a turnover to put Taylorville in front, 16-13, with 5:54 left.
Effingham only scored two points in the second quarter and trailed 23-15 at the break. The Hearts trailed, 43-27, after the third and outscored the Lady Tornadoes, 19-15, in the fourth quarter.
“We had trouble against their zone,” Schafer said. “I didn’t think our shooters looked to shoot; we worked on some new things and some new wrinkles to get them shots and I thought we did that, but they didn’t take them for whatever reason.”
Austin led Effingham with 13 points.
“She made some shots for us early and then I thought she still passed up some,” Schafer said. “She’s such a great teammate. Usually, a kid moves in and she’s not a captain, but she showed all of the leadership qualities and the team respected her enough to make her a captain. She’s still trying to find her stride.”
Martin had 12 points. Beals had eight. Saige Althoff had six. Donaldson had four and Rylea Hodge had three.
Fleming led Taylorville with 14 points.
“There’s been a lot of things I’ve worked on personally (during the summer). I’ve worked on a lot of footwork because offense and defense takes a lot of footwork,” Fleming said.
Tarr and Heimsness each had 11 points. Kietzman had nine. Megan Czajkowski had three and four players tallied two.