DANVILLE — For a portion of the season, Aleah Emers seemed to be the only amount of offense for the Danville Area Community women’s basketball team.
But as players have returned from injury, Emers has returned to her familiar guard position and with that, the Lady Jaguars have won three of their last four games.
On Wednesday, DACC was able to beat Spoon River 70-56 for their second straight win of the season as Emers had 23 points, 11 rebounds and five assists.
“It feels good to be able to get back in my spot and be comfortable where I know I can make us better,” Emers said. “I wanted to win. it was too close so I had to get our team out of the hole and take it home.”
“She’s been able to adapt and play multiple positions and we just want to make sure she is on the floor,” DACC head coach Kyle Bent said. “When she is out there and locked in, she is a good player for us. She got in a pretty good rhythm tonight. We ran some stuff and I liked her matchups, especially in the second half.”
The Lady Jaguars were only up 45-41, before they outscored the Snappers 25-15 in the fourth of Wednesday’s game, which was the first for the team since Jan. 10.
“We haven’t been home for quite a while,” Bent said. “We hosted the Vermilion County Tournament and that’s a great thing, but it forces us to be on the road and that is fine because we are about to experience four home games in a row.
“We are happy to just being able to get back, get a routine in practice and play where we practice and getting a little bit of a rhythm. It is always nice to play at home. Ultimately, we are here to win games and wining ugly is better than a pretty loss and we will take it.”
It was the first home game in a while for players like Salt Fork product Alexa Jamison and Chi Igwe. Jamison was held up by a knee injury for a few games and while she had four points, three assists and two steals on Wednesday, she said she is getting better.
“For myself, my shots weren’t falling tonight, so I was looking to get assists and getting Aleah, Madison (Jobe) and our other players the ball to get easy layups and I think that helped us get the win,” Jamison said. “I was out with my knee for 4-5 games and its been a struggle to get back to 100 percent, but it has been getting better and better. Getting the ball to Aleah, she was getting good finishes and Madison was making shots and I think that s important tonight.”
Madison Jobe had 17 points, while Igwe had 11 points, Jewelisa Gill had six and Taylor Clark added five points.
“Madison was pretty good and she’s such a threat from three that she gets face guarded a lot,” Bent said. “We want her to take shots in the paint. We ran a coupe of decoys that opened some plays like with Katie (Lawrence) getting an open shot in the fourth and ran a set with a back cut, cleaned it off and Aleah was the one that took the handoff and scored. It is nice to have Lex back too and get a little bit of chemistry to end the season.
“Everyone is back, but Kortney Bynum is out for 3-4 weeks. We have nine players now and we are playing the how do we get better in practice and not get anyone hurt or tired game. We have to have healthy bodies and fresh legs.”
The Lady Jaguars are 10-11 and will try to continue their streak today against Lake Land College.
“Like Coach Bent said, the schedule turned over and we have now played everyone once,” Jamison said. “So going back to the games that we did lose and improve and try to pull wins that we didn’t get before and making sure that we are getting better.”
“We have our point guard back and that will make things easy for us,” Emers said. “We just hope to just turn it around, learn from out mistakes and get wins against the teams we played.”