By Jason Wesseldyk
Sports Editor
OTSEGO—Cali Miller, Hannah Fitzpatrick and Kaitlyn Payseno formed quite the tremendous trio for the Otsego girls basketball team in its game with archrival Plainwell on Friday, Feb. 11.
Those three combined to score 44 points in leading the Bulldogs to the 54-33 victory.
Miller led the charge with 20 points, followed by Fitzpatrick with 13 and Payseno with 11. Not that scoring was all they did.
Payseno and Miller also snagged seven rebounds each to tie for the team lead, while Fitzpatrick doled out five assists to finish one ahead of Payseno and Aly Aldrich in that category.
“As far as a big three is concerned, Kaitlyn, Cali and Hannah are probably the best we’ve had since I’ve been coaching here,” Otsego coach Tony Koshar said. “They’re all so athletic and can do so many things to help us. It makes us a tough team to defend, because you have to respect all three of them. Plus we have other girls who can step up and knock down some shots.”
Fitzpatrick had the hot hand early for the Bulldogs, scoring eight of her points during the first quarter to help stake Otsego to a 16-8 lead after one quarter of play. By halftime, Otsego had extended its lead to 30-14.
Plainwell did score the first six points of the third quarter to narrow the cap to 10, but Miller scored seven straight points—including one of her two 3-pointers—to push the lead back to 37-20.
“I thought we did a good job of starting well and maintaining that level of play throughout the game,” Koshar said. “Even when Plainwell made that run to start the third quarter, our girls stayed focused and got back on track.”
Defensively, Otsego limited Plainwell to single digits in three of the four quarters—the Trojans scored 10 in the third quarter—and didn’t allow any Plainwell players to reach double figures in scoring.
“I think Plainwell has improved quite a bit since the first time we played them,” Koshar said. “So for us to play as well as we did defensively says a lot out the effort our girls were giving.”
Lauren Vos paced Plainwell with nine points, while Lauren Vandersteldt added eight and Ellery Troff chipped in with seven.
