LAKE CRYSTAL — While Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial’s 5-foot-9 senior guard Clara Jeddeloh celebrated her 1,000th career point, a familiar foe in St. Clair rolled to an 81-49 South Central Conference girls basketball win Friday night.
Jeddeloh, who played two seasons for the Cyclones, tallied eight points to push her career mark to 1,023 points heading into Monday’s game at St. James. Jeddeloh converted six free throws and a layup as a tenacious St. Clair defense limited her touches all game.
“I grew up together with most of them so it’s kind of a friendly rivalry,” Jeddeloh said. “Obviously, this wasn’t the outcome we wanted but we’ll be back. They have some very good shooters that we didn’t get out on. We’ve got a very good point guard (Alice Hollerich) who is coming off a back injury, so we weren’t quite at full strength.
“I think the 1,000 points shows how much hard work I’ve put in. I’ve put a lot of hours in shooting in my drive way and I couldn’t have done it without my dad and my biggest fan, my mom. It’s really a cool accomplishment and I couldn’t have done it without my awesome teammates.”
While it wasn’t Jeddeloh’s most efficient effort of her career, her coach and father Rick Jeddeloh didn’t seem to be any less proud of his daughter.
“Clara has turned into not only a terrific basketball player, but she is the best kid,” Rick said. “She kind of found a home in Lake Crystal. Where she wasn’t comfortable before she kind of found out where she fits in the best and fits in the environment here very well. I am very proud of her and I know she’d trade the 1,000 points in for a win any day.
“In my opinion, we played against the favorite to win the section today. This is actually the first time all year we’ve had our full team. Alice Hollerich is one of our better players so we’re going to get better the rest of the way and hopefully if we see them again will be able to challenge them a little bit better.”
LCWM (9-6) rode an early scoring surge by senior guard Jacy Jordan to a 13-11 lead seven minutes into the spirited contest. Jordan, who connected five times from beyond the arc, ended up with 21 points. However, the Knights couldn’t contain Cyclones’ senior scoring whiz Brooklin Hinze, a 2,000 plus career scorer. Hinze fired in 20 of her game-high 29 points as the ‘Clones (13-2) grabbed a 38-26 lead at the break.
“We knew coming into the game that we had to stop Clara because she’s a great player and has had a great season,” Hinze said. “We deny all the players from touching the ball and don’t give up any easy shots to anybody. We came off a loss to MVL, so we came out hungry and showed who we were tonight. We played together and we’re at our best when we’re sharing the ball.”
After Jordan’s 3-pointer closed the gap to 57-43 with 10:12 remaining, Hinze’s slashing drive began an 11-0 surge which produced a 68-43 on another drive to the cup by Hinze. Senior guard Brooklyn Meng put through 17 points, including a trio of threes for the winners, who also received eight points each from Haddie Jobe and Aubree Mathiowetz. St. Clair made 11 3-pointers in ending up 29 of 67 from the field for 43.2%.
“Clara is a fantastic kid who has put a ton of time and effort into her game,” St. Clair coach Brian Noyes said. “She has turned into a tremendous player and is certainly rewarding of being a 1,000-point scorer. We like to press but when we’re settled in our half-court defense we’re certainly focused on No. 3 (Jeddeloh) tonight. We shuttle a lot of kids in and out and feel we have five kids on the court who can score. … We were balanced that way tonight and that makes us hard to guard.”
St. Clair hosts Belle Plaine Tuesday.