Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Grace Fincham has improved in nearly every element since jumping immediately into the West High lineup as a freshman two seasons ago.

The biggest area of growth for the West High junior guard hasn’t been on offense or defense.

It’s been confidence.

“My confidence has definitely grown and it’s from playing with all these girls,” Fincham said. “They give me so much confidence.”

If Friday’s season opener is any indication a more confident Fincham could pose an even bigger problem for opponents this season.

Fincham poured in a game-high 32 points and grabbed seven rebounds to lift Class 5A No. 13 West High to a 59-44 win over last year’s Class 3A champion Solon in the season opener for both teams in Solon.

“I’m more confident for sure and I think that’s helped and my teammates have helped me with that,” Fincham said. “I couldn’t have scored those points without them passing it in to me so them having confidence in me helps a lot.”

Fincham averaged 8.8 points per game as a freshman and averaged a team-best 15.1 per game last season.

On Friday Fincham put her confidence and her all-around offensive game on full display.

The 5-foot-11 Fincham scored with ease in the post against smaller defenders and drew bigger defenders away from the basketball before driving for layups.

Fincham finished 15-of-18 from the field and hit a 3-pointer on her way to a game-high 32 points.

“She feels like she is in a mismatch situation all the time, which I feel like is the scorers mentality,” West High coach Nate Frese said. “She had that killer look in her eyes and that’s what I am excited about for her going forward this year.”

As Fincham got going West High slowed pulled away.

She had weight of the Trojans’ 18 second-quarter points as West High turned a 12-7 lead after the opening quarter into a 30-20 halftime lead.

West High took control of the game with a 12-2 run in the opening four minutes of the second half that featured nine points from Fincham.

“Our team has been working on not giving up a lead in the third quarter because that’s what we did a lot in games last season,” Fincham said. “We talked about that at halftime and said we can’t give this lead up and that’s the mentality we had in the third quarter.”

Fincham scored 20 of her 32 points after halftime and made her final nine field goal attempts many of which came on post feeds from teammates.

“We had never practiced Grace just going into the post and burying her girl,” Frese said. “We want to play five out and drive and kick but we drew it up and said what we were going to do and I knew she was going to score.”

Solon closed the third quarter on a 10-1 run to close the gap to 45-34 and got as close as nine points on a Kobi Lietz driving layup 15 seconds into the fourth quarter.

West High responded by scoring 12 of the next 14 points with Fincham scoring nine straight during that run.

Solon had 27 turnovers and had second-half scoring droughts of 3:35 and 3:25.

“I don’t remember the last time we had 20 turnovers and some of that had to do with our youth but certainly some of it had to do with (West),” Smith said. “Watching film from last year I thought West’s defense has stepped it up a notch.”

Sophomore Sasha Baldwin had nine points for West High while Kate Van Waning had six and Lauryn Hynek had five points.

“The first game jitters are always going to be a thing and what I liked after those first few minutes we got back to what we do,” Frese said. “We spend a lot of time on defense in practice, as a Steve Bergman disciple we are going to spend a fair amount of time on our fundamental defense. What I liked is we were in the right place most of the time.”

Lietz and freshman Beckett Kruse each had 10 points to lead Solon while Delainey Durr added nine points for the Spartans.

West High returns to action next Friday in Minnesota against Hopkins.

Solon travels to Class 2A third-ranked Cascade on Tuesday.

“Whether these kids have played before or not we are used to winning,” Smith said. “How you respond matters and I think we will respond well.”

West High      12  18  15  14  –  59

Solon               7   13  14  10  –  44

West High (59) – Ava Frese 1-2 0-0 2, Kate Van Waning 3-4 0-0 6, Abby Neumiller 1-8 0-0 3, Elle Barnett 1-3 0-0 2, Grace Fincham 15-18 1-2 32, Lauryn Hynek 2-2 1-2 5, Sasha Baldwin 3-12 0-0 9, Sophie Bodin 0-0 0-2 0, Totals 26-49 3-8 59.

Solon (44) – Kobi Lietz 5-12 0-0 10, Delainey Durr 3-9 0-0 9, Laney Johnson 0-1 4-4 4, Quinn Armentrout 2-3 0-0 4, Laeni Hinkle 0-3 1-2 1, Jerzey Haluska 1-3 3-4 6, Beckett Kruse 5-8 0-0 10, Totals 16-39 8-10 44.

3-point field goals – Solon 4-11 (Lietz 0-1, Durr 3-5, Johnson 0-1, Armentrout 0-1, Hinkle 0-1, Haluska 1-2), West 4-15 (Neumiller 1-5, Van Waning 0-1, Barnett 0-1, Fincham 1-2, Baldwin 2-6). Rebounds – Solon 21 (Lietz 7), West 27 (Fincham 7). Turnovers – Solon 27, West 18. Total fouls – Solon 13, West 13. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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