Whiteland girls basketball rolls in opener

Tuesday night’s opener for the Whiteland girls basketball team was a 66-30 rout of visiting Indianapolis Attucks, but coach Kyle Shipp chose to look at the game as a learning experience.

“We just really wanted to come out and worry about ourselves and start jelling together as a team,” Shipp said. “Good game one for us, and I thought we got a lot of contributions from different people.”

As usually happens in first games of the year, the shooting on both sides wasn’t the best.

Whiteland missed its first four shots before finding the mark, and shooting 49 percent on the night. Attucks, meanwhile, missed on all but two of the 14 3-point shots it took.

Once they settled in, the Warriors started hitting 3s, with sophomore Kylee Marlin knocking in three in the first half and four total.

“We’re trying to get better,” Shipp said. “We had some questions, and tonight kind of helped us answer those; our guard play and how we’re going to defend.”

Whiteland also had some troubles from the free throw line, missing nine of 26 attempts. That really didn’t hurt the Warriors in this game, but Shipp took note, knowing that in a tighter contest that many misses could make a big difference.

After Attucks took a 2-0 lead, the Warriors started rolling and once they took a double-digit lead, they didn’t let the Tigers to within 15 points for the rest of the evening.

Shipp didn’t let the game get out of hand, instead making plenty of substitutions to give several younger players their first varsity experience.

Among those was new transfer player Wilnie Joseph, a 6-4 center from Georgia, who had four rebounds and clogged up the middle on the Tigers, who seemed to veer away from her.

“This was a great opportunity to get (Wilnie) on the court,” Shipp said. “First game we’ve actually seen her play, and she’s going to continue to learn our system.”

The Warriors did a good job of taking care of the ball, losing it on turnovers only 13 times compared to the Tigers, who turned it over 25 times.

Whiteland had three players in double figures, with Marlin leading the way with 19 points. Senior Toni Joyner and junior Gracie McCullars had 11 points each.

“Just a good game for us to build on,” Shipp said.

Up next for Whiteland is another home tilt against Greenfield-Central on Saturday.