Junior Monique Kaiser scored a game-high 14 points and classmates Aneisha Hardin and Mikah Aldridgeeach added 13 to lead Beachwood to a 57-32 victory over visiting Newbury on Tuesday.
Five other Beachwood players scored as the Bison improved to 6-0 overall and 5-0 in the Chagrin Valley Conference.
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“It went good,” said Beachwood head coach Mike Coreno. “It was one of those games where we had an opportunity to get everyone in and we had balanced scoring. It was a good night.”
Kaiser played one of her best games of the season.
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“She had a big game,” Coreno said. “She made some steals and played good defense. When you look at the points, she had 14, but I thought Mo did a real nice job defensively and then did a real good job in transition.”
That transition game was a welcome sight for Coreno.
Despite the success this season, one of Beachwood’s weaknesses is capitalizing on its ability to create turnovers.
“We’ve been having a hard time finishing,” he said. “We’ve been forcing a lot of turnovers but when I’ve been watching game film I’ve noticed we’ve struggled a little bit to finish. I’m not worried about scoring X amount of points, but we’ve been missing some uncontested layups and shots.”
Beachwood got off to a quick start, outscoring the Black Knights, 17-5, in the first quarter. The Bison led 31-15 at halftime.
Molly Walsh led Newbury with 10 points.
Beachwood finished 8-12 last season then brought in Coreno, the team’s third coach in as many seasons.
Even with six wins in mid-December, the Bison haven’t exceeded their coach’s expectations.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “There’s some good talent, a lot of talent on the team. Piecing it together and getting everything in place is making it easy. I’m not really surprised at all. I believed coming into this situation that with so many kids returning and they played a lot of basketball that we had the potential to win 15-20 games. Hopefully by the end of this week we’re 8-0 and halfway to that goal.”
Beachwood hosts John Adams on Thursday and Garfield Heights on Saturday before a two-week layoff for the holidays.
It’s that break that has Coreno strategizing to keep the Bison fresh and ready for two big conference games against West Geauga and Cuyahoga Heights when they return to action in January.
“It’s going to be tough with the holidays coming up,” he said. “That first week off we’re just going to work on a lot of fundamental things, a lot of free throws, ball handling drills and defense, and then the second week get our legs back and everything and get ready for that West Geauga game and Cuyahoga Heights.”
The Bison end the season with 11 of their last 13 games on the road.
“That’s a lot of bus rides,” Coreno said. “We have to buckle down and focus.”
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