Phillips, Blue Devils handle Lake

CAREY – Kynlee Phillips had more in the tank.The Carey senior surpassed her season averages in the third quarter, but with the Blue Devils in control, she sat the fourth quarter.She still racked up 14 points and 12 rebounds, leading Carey to a 56-37 non-league win over Lake on Wednesday.The 56 points is a season-high for the Blue Devils."I just try to play my best and work with my teammates," Phillips said. "I know to always box out and go for the rebounds. What worked well for us was working as a team and coming out strong."Phillips entered the game averaging 9.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. She hauled in 10 rebounds in the first half alone."She plays hard underneath and she goes after the rebound," Carey coach Keith O'Flaherty said. "She keeps herself for the most part under control under there when she gets the ball. She makes good decisions on the shots."The Blue Devils (8-1) used offensive rebounding to their advantage. O'Flaherty admits his squad needs to shoot a little better, but 16 offensive rebounds allowed more opportunities for the Blue Devils. Lake (3-9) took 17 less shots than Carey."With all those offensive rebounds, that means we're missing shots," O'Flaherty said. "It is a good thing we're getting that many offensive rebounds to get putbacks and second-chance points."Offensive rebounding wasn't necessary early for the Blue Devils. Ella Clinger, Rylee Row, Kelsey Bursby and Riley Yost combined to make the first four shots of the game for Carey. The Blue Devils led 9-4 at that point with back-to-back scores by Phillips and one from Rachel Reinhart making it 15-4.Six different girls scoring in the first 6:41 of the game couldn't epitomize Carey's offense any better."We're not one-dimensional that way," O'Flaherty said. "That's the way we have to be. We don't have any standout players. Everyone takes their turn and everyone does their role."The Flyers got within 15-9 after one quarter, but Phillips, Reinhart and Bursby each scored to take a 21-9 edge early in the second quarter. Carey was ahead 25-16 at halftime.Sydney Stanley opened the second half scoring for the Flyers, cutting the Blue Devils' lead to seven points.Carey continued to play great defense throughout, forcing tough chance after tough chance for Lake. That allowed the Blue Devils to get out and score, pushing the lead up to 37-22 after Yost scored after a Flyers turnover."We don't shoot the ball well, so we have to play good defense," O'Flaherty said. "That's one of the things I stress to the girls. If you want to win big games, you have to play defense. You have to get in there and get stops."Lake stayed within 37-26, but Carey laid the smack down to pull away. Phillips scored twice before tallies by Yost and Clinger gave the Blue Devils a 45-26 lead after three quarters."I don't know if we just wore them out a little bit or what happened, but I was glad to see that run," O'Flaherty said. "They were staying within striking range. I wanted a little bit more comfort. Our press kind of picked it up."Reinhart began the fourth quarter with a 3 before Emily Brodman hit a baseline jumper and Row scored for Carey. That wrapped up a 15-0 run for the Blue Devils that spanned 4:50."I think we never got comfortable with where we were at," Phillips said. "We just keep playing hard. If you get comfortable, you could lose your lead. We wanted to keep doing what we do."Stanley led Lake with 11 points. The Flyers made just 6-of-14 free throws.O'Flaherty likes the competition of playing a team two divisions bigger than the Blue Devils."They have a nice team," he said. "They have a few players out there that drove to the bucket on us and exposed some of our weaknesses we have to work on. They have the firepower. It is nice playing a bigger school because we like a little bit of a challenge."Yost backed Phillips' big night with 10 points. Row, Clinger, and Reinhart each tallied seven points. Brodman added eight rebounds."The biggest thing is getting back into that routine," O'Flaherty said. "We didn't have a whole lot of games in December. We had a stretch where we'd have a week off and play a game. Then we'd have a week off and play a game."Now we're into the part of the season where we have two games this week and three next week," he added. "We're getting into a busy part of our season in January." Carey 56, Lake 37Lake 9-7-10-11 - 37Carey 15-10-20-11 - 56Lake (3-9): 14-38 FG, 6-14 FT, 3-8 3pt (Christ, Miller, Longoria), 25 rebounds (Little 7), 16 turnovers. Scoring: Sydney Stanley 4 3-5 11, Kaydence Eckenrode 2 1-4 5, Lauren Tobias 0 0-0 0, Brooke Wiley 2 0-0 4, Savannah Little 2 1-3 5, Kyleigh Christ 2 0-0 5, Madison Miller 1 0-0 3, Elena Longoria 1 1-2 4.Carey (8-1): 25-55 FG, 3-3 FT, 3-13 3pt (Burst, Clinger, Reinhart), 33 rebounds (Phillips 12), 15 turnovers. Scoring: Kelsey Bursby 2 0-0 5, Rylee Row 3 1-1 7, Ella Clinger 3 0-0 7, Riley Yost 5 0-0 10, Kynlee Phillips 6 2-2 14, Emily Brodman 2 0-0 4, Rachel Reinhart 3 0-0 7, Eliza Weinandy 1 0-0 2.