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The Chelsea Hornets displayed a dominant defensive performance to open up area play with a win over the Helena Huskies on Friday, Jan. 3 at Chelsea High School. (For the Reporter/Cari Dean)

By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

CHELSEA – As the ball was tipped and taken up the court, the Chelsea Hornets quickly found all the tools they needed for success, securing a victory in their first area game of the season over the Helena Huskies.

The county game saw a complete defensive performance from Chelsea as it defeated Helena 67-22 on Friday, Jan. 3 at Chelsea High School, beginning area play on a high note.

The Hornets made their presence felt immediately in the beginning of the first quarter. With a 3-2 lead, Chelsea forced the Huskies into a long one-minute possession that ultimately ended with no points getting on the board.

Chelsea head coach Jason Harlow was proud of how competitive his players were on defense, showing a great amount of energy to open up area play.

“I feel like in January, you’ve got to come out and set the tone on the defensive end. I felt like we were pretty good with our pressure in this game,” Harlow said. “The kids did a good job communicating in our matchup and really guarded and set the tone defensively.”

From that moment forward, the Hornets started to strike on both sides of the ball, especially Olivia Pryor.

Pryor hit a 3-pointer to extend the lead to 6-2, which led to her helping the defense force a turnover on the ensuing possession. That turnover turned into a drive that ultimately made it 9-4, forcing Helena into a timeout with 3:26 in the first quarter.

Things did not stop there, as Chelsea continued to rattle off eight straight points thanks to more work from Pryor, Kamryn Hudson and Caroline Brown.

The trio ultimately finished a 14-point swing for the team thanks to those points and the 10 steals they recorded, eventually leading 17-6 headed into the second quarter.

For Pryor, this night was another big step in her development. Harlow mentioned how he has wanted her to take more strides offensively, which is an area he is noticing constant improvement in.

“Even though she’s just a sophomore, she has two and a half years of varsity experience, and she just gets better every time out,” Harlow said. “We’ve asked her this year to do a little more offensively. She’s great in transition, she’s great when she puts it on the floor, she’s really put a lot of work into her 3-point shot. Olivia, her ceiling is so high, we’re excited about her future.”

Haley Trotter continued things into the next period, beginning things with four points of her own, before handing things over to Brown, who took things over.

Brown put up seven of the team’s 17 points in the second, highlighted by an inside drive that ended in an and-one opportunity, which she converted on.

The team continued to help her out by recording eight steals in the quarter, many of which turned into points at the other end and resulted in a 34-14 game going into the halftime break.

Pryor got back into the action coming out of the locker room for the third quarter, starting things off with a two-point basket of her own. From there, she and Hudson continued their show on both sides of the ball.

The duo combined for 14 of the Hornets’ 24 points in the third, but that was not all. Pryor and Hudson also recorded a combined six more steals, which became a big reason why the Huskies only scored two points in the quarter, as the score became 58-16 heading into the fourth.

The final eight minutes rolled on with a running clock, and although Chelsea gave up a few points in the quarter, it was still able to calmly finish things off and head out with a 67-22 victory and a 1-0 record in area play.

At the end of the day, Chelsea felt happy with the win, but Harlow knows that there is still more ball to be played.

“It’s something to build off of,” Harlow said. “It feels better to be 1-0 and we protected our home court, but we understand the other teams in our area are talented and well coached and it’ll be a dog fight every night, so just take it one game at a time and we’ll see where the chips fall at the end of it.”

Pryor led all scorers for the night, scoring 21 points while recording seven steals and two rebounds. Brown also reached double figures on the night for the Hornets, recording 13 points to go along with her nine steals and two rebounds.

Hudson put up eight points to the scoreboard in addition to her eight steals and one rebound. Trotter brought in seven points of her own, but was seen all over the stat sheet with five rebounds, four steals and one block. Juliann Bass also contributed, scoring six.

For Helena, Amari Grant dropped six points on the night, while Gracelyn Ambrose put up four in the fourth quarter’s closing minutes.

Chelsea improves to 13-7 on the year and will put its 1-0 area record up for another test on Tuesday, Jan. 7, when it stays home to play the Pelham Panthers at 5:30 p.m.

The Huskies fall to 10-8 for the season and will hit the road on Tuesday as well to face the Spain Park Jaguars at 5:30 p.m.

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