Mistakes cost Edwardsburg girls in 55-49 loss at Three Rivers

Feb 4, 2025 | News

THREE RIVERS — A tough week for the Edwardsburg girls’ basketball team ended with a 55-49 Wolverine Conference loss at Three Rivers Friday. 

Edwardsburg falls to 11-4 overall and 6-3 in the league. Three Rivers, meanwhile, improves to 3-5 in conference games and 5-8 overall.

Simply put, Scott Rodeslier’s Lady Eddies made too many uncharacteristic mistakes and Three Rivers took advantage of them at key moments to pull off the upset. 

The win by Three Rivers avenged a 60-29 loss by the Lady Cats on the Eddies’ home floor earlier this season. 

Three Rivers’ defensive pressure forced Edwardsburg into 12 of its 14 turnovers in the second half, including 10 during the fourth quarter. 

“Three Rivers played with a lot of inspiration tonight. We had a lot of untimely and uncharacteristic mistakes. Our girls came out of halftime and built a nine-point lead going into the fourth quarter and we felt pretty good about that. We just didn’t make enough plays down the stretch to put them away. I felt like we were a step slow all night and we missed some buckets and they (Three Rivers) made baskets at key moments,” Rodeslier said. 

“It’s been a difficut week for us with Shelby Laubach coming off a four-game absence because of a concussion and we’ve had some other personal things going on with other team members. I was so proud of how hard our kids fought back tonight. We’ll bounce back from this.”

Laubach, the Lady Eddies 5-foot-7 sophomore starting guard, missed the last four games and was just given clearance to practice on Thursday. She scored just two points in the contest. 

Edwardsburg was paced in the scoring column by Maddie Pobuda with 14 points. The senior guard made four of her team’s six three-pointers on the night. Kourtney Zarycki chipped in with 12 points followed by Kya Shier with nine and Ella Zache finished with six. 

Edwardsburg ended the contest shooting 17-of-65 (26.2 percent) from the field and made 7-of-15 (47 percent) at the foul stripe. 

Zarycki also pulled down nine rebounds to lead Edwardsburg.

Edwardsburg fell behind 5-0 to start the contest. The Lady Eddies eventually evened the contest at 14-14 on a bucket from sophomore forward Kya Shier inside. Back-to-back triples to close the first quarter by Pobuda put the visitors out in front 20-18. 

Edwardsburg did a nice job getting the ball inside the post for several buckets in the second quarter, including crucial layups by Zarycki, Pobuda and Ella Zache. Glass drained a bank shot near the end of the period that helped the Lady Cats force a 30-30 deadock entering halftime. 

A 15-6 Edwardsburg run in the third helped the Eddies build a 45-35 advantage entering the final eight minutes. Zarycki and Zache helped ignite that run with back-to-back layups off steals. Pobuda and Zarycki also had triples during the period and Shier added a putback and free throw. Lauback also had a key basket during that span for the Eddies. 

Back-to-back steals and layups by Glass and a Decker triple put Three Rivers in front 52-46 with 2:40 remaining in the fourth quarter. 

Shier then hit the second of two free-throw attempts to bring Edwardsburg within five points, 52-47, with 1:21 left. 

But Glass would hit three out of four free-throw attempts in the final minute to help preserve the Lady Cats’ win.  

Glass, Three Rivers’ sharpshooting guard, scored a game-high 24 points for the Lady Cats to go along with eight rebounds, five steals and four assists. Jennaya Decker contributed eight points, four rebounds and four steals for the Lady Cats. Alyssa Stalker tossed in eight points and eight rebounds for the home team as well. 

Three Rivers outrebounded Edwardsburg 28-23. 

Carlie Shoesmith stated after the contest that it was the best game her Three Rivers ballclub has played all season. 

“We just came in with the idea that we were going to get the steals and finish shots. Our strength is getting points off our transition game and we found a way to do that tonight,” Shoesmith said. 

“Jennaya has stepped up the last few games and her leadership has come a long way and Dani had a phenomenal game for us tonight as well. Our two postplayers, Alyssa (Stalker) and Braylee (Burg) played well inside and got some crucial rebounds for us.”

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