Active Endeavors/McCurry’s rode its familiar 1-2 punch — Iowa incoming freshman Jaime Printy and Iowa senior JoAnn Hamlin — en route to an 88-57 thrashing of L.L. Pelling Company/Cullen Painting in Game Time action Tuesday night in North Liberty.
Printy started on fire, scoring 18 first-half points, including 3-of-4 from the 3-point line. The Marion native also showed skills in driving to the basket with a minimal amount of space, finishing strong at the hoop, drawing fouls, and dishing the ball to open teammates.
“I don’t really think about it,” she said. “It depends on who is guarding me. If I think I can get to the basket, then I look to the basket first, but if not, I look for a shot.”
Active Endeavors/McCurry’s head coach Mark Weaver said the team thrives when Printy has the ball in her hands.
“Her strength, to me, is to let her have the ball,” he said. “It’s not necessarily scoring, it’s finding the open person, finding who’s got the best shot, going to the hoop. She gets to the foul line really well.”
Not only did Printy get to the foul line, she capitalized, shooting 7-for-8 from the charity stripe. She nearly had a triple-double, finishing the game with 24 points, 10 rebounds, and eight assists.
“She’s really hard to guard,” said Iowa incoming freshman Trisha Nesbitt of Pelling/Cullen. “She’s got her shot, and whenever you get up on her, she can go right around you.”
Active Endeavors/McCurry’s opened up its first double-digit lead at 24-14 with 8:30 remaining in the first half. Pelling/Cullen was able to close the lead to nine after Iowa sophomore Kelly Krei drilled a 3-pointer to make the score 26-17 with 4:30 left in the first.
That single-digit deficit was Pelling/Cullen’s last, because it couldn’t find a way to curb Active Endeavors/McCurry’s scoring. Printy drove down the right side of the lane in the closing seconds of the half and finished a tough lay-up to give her team a 41-20 edge.
Pelling/Cullen continued to struggle offensively and defensively in the second half, but it was a different player giving it fits.
After only scoring four points in the first half, Hamlin heated up in the second, adding 14 more points on her way to finishing with 18 points and 15 rebounds.
“The first half, I wasn’t hitting my shot, and I was a little underconfident,” she said. “The second half, you just got to keep shooting and passing the ball more to help your confidence.”
Pelling/Cullen was without Iowa sophomore-to-be Hannah Draxten, who was suffering from a back injury that has been with her since high school, Pelling/Cullen head coach Randy Larson said.
Larson is unsure if Draxten will be able to participate in the league the remainder of the summer.
“We were just a little short-handed,” he said. “I thought we got some shots early that didn’t go in, and then they started pressing, and the game got out of hand.”
Larson noted he thought Krei played her best game of the summer after she finished with 21 points and five rebounds.
“I thought Krei had her best night,” Larson said. “She did a great job on defense on Hamlin. Hamlin is a load, but she had to take 20 shots to get 18 points and never got a free throw.”
Nesbitt, the only other Iowa player in the game, finished with four points, six rebounds, and five assists.