HOWARD — Mia Rieder couldn’t care less about playing time.
She’s a senior and a four-year player at Mount Vernon – one of the few to stick it out until the end – but she does not start. She comes off the bench for coach Nathan Short’s team, loaded with young talent after graduating six seniors last year.
Some seniors might have an issue with this. They might let it affect their effort, their attitude and their overall investment in the game.
Not Rieder, whose performance was essential in a 46-40 win against East Knox on Tuesday night.
“When I’m in the game, I don’t think about anything on the outside. I just focus like I’m in the game,” said Rieder, also a marching band member and softball player at MVHS.
“I just get to my spot and do as much as I can to help the team. And I’m glad to come off the bench and help. I’m not a starter; that’s fine with me. I just like to come off the bench, help my teammates, and be gritty as much as I can on the floor.”
Rieder remains engaged and ready-to-go, whether she’s on the bench or the court. And on Tuesday, in the third quarter of a nip-and-tuck road battle with county foe East Knox, Short called the senior’s number.
She didn’t miss.
Rieder knocked down two wing three-pointers – both on assists from fellow senior Nevaeh Williams – to help stretch Mount Vernon’s lead from 1 to 9 in the final two minutes of the period.
She contributed in the fourth quarter as well, flying out-of-bounds to save a ball in transition and flipping it to sophomore Rees Lepley, who laid it in to stretch the lead to 10.
It was Rieder who sparked Mount Vernon on a cold night in Howard, when the offense seemed stagnant and out-of-sync. Her energy and focus helped propel the Yellow Jackets to the non-conference win.
“Mia is an amazing kid. She has done everything we’ve asked her to do,” said Short, in his second season as Mount Vernon’s head coach. “In the last couple weeks in practice, she’s been shooting really well. So that’s definitely given me a lot of confidence to put her in.
“And the last game we had, she hit a huge three, and tonight, (two) inside-out threes – she had her feet set and she let ’em fly. Because I mean, that’s a huge strength of hers. And those shots were huge.
“She came off the bench ready to go. I know that I’m going to get her best every time, and I’m super happy for her.”
THE GAME: East Knox (2-7) gave Mount Vernon (5-5) all it could handle early.
The Bulldogs were able to break the Yellow Jackets’ full-court pressure and capitalize with easy buckets. They were also able to win the battle inside, dominating on the offensive and defensive glass, and force Mount Vernon into tough shots and turnovers, which led to more transition points.
East Knox fell behind 7-3 early in the first quarter, but battled back, narrowing the margin to 13-11 heading into the second stanza. The Bulldogs took their largest lead of the night, 22-19, with two minutes left until halftime.
But Mount Vernon didn’t budge. The Yellow Jackets, who had kept things close through hot perimeter shooting, closed the half on a 5-0 run.
Sophomore Kaitlyn Thompson converted a back-down lay-in and sophomore Kymber Bell knocked down three free-throws to give the visitors a 24-22 lead at the break.
“I just felt like East Knox came out as the aggressor, and that was unacceptable on our end,” said Short, when asked about his halftime speech. “We made some changes.”
One of those changes was pulling back on the full-court pressure and settling into a 2-3 zone on defense. This slowed the game down and forced East Knox to score in the half-court, which proved challenging as the game progressed.
“We’ve played a lot of 2-3 this year. I thought we could get up and pressure them; that backfired. So I’ll take that,” Short said. “But (we went) back to the 2-3, kind of played what we were more familiar with, and that worked in our favor.”
The game remained nip-and-tuck for most of the third quarter, with both teams trading hard-to-come-by buckets. But Rieder’s presence late in the period changed everything.
Her first triple came on a kick-out from Williams, the team’s starting center and leading scorer. When the Bulldogs swarmed Williams in the post, she found Rieder wide open on the wing, and the senior forward made them pay.
The second occurred in similar fashion. Moments after Williams scored on a back-down of her own – and Mount Vernon forced its second straight turnover – the center found the forward open on the wing once again.
The defense had collapsed, leaving Rieder all alone. She caught the pass from Williams and calmly sank the triple, bringing the road crowd to life as the lead swelled to 37-28 by quarter’s end.
“This group is 0% selfish. I mean, our posts almost pass it out too much, honestly. But they trust who they’re passing it to,” Short said.
“Teams are good when they have trust – when they trust what we’re doing and they can trust each other. And that was huge (tonight). And like I said about Mia, she is positive all the time. She is such a good teammate. She was ready to do her job, and it was really cool to see.”
Mount Vernon took this momentum into the fourth quarter and never looked back. Rieder’s save in transition that led to a Lepley lay-in brought the road crowd to life once again, giving the Yellow Jackets a 44-34 lead with 3:38 left.
“It feels really good,” Rieder said afterwards, when asked about making plays late. “I’ve been working a lot on my three-point shot. Every day, I go out there before practice and work on that.
“And usually, in a game, when I shoot and I make shots … it doesn’t register with me. I’m just like, ‘OK, get back on defense for the next play.’ But yeah, that big save, that was good.”
The Bulldogs cut the lead to 46-40 with 43 seconds left. But the Yellow Jackets were able to hang on and collect the road victory.
East Knox head coach Mandy Todd said Mount Vernon’s decision to switch into a half-court zone made the difference.
“When they went into that zone, that half-court zone slowed the game down a little bit. … One of our trends that we do, is we really like to run the floor, push the ball down the floor. And that kind of gets us in our offensive rhythm. I have a team full of girls that love to drive the lane – not a lot of outside set shooters,” Todd said.
“So when they went into the zone, it challenged us a little bit. We had to find a way to get the ball where he needed it to be. And I think it got better towards the end. I think if we’d had two more minutes, it might have been a different game.”
Todd said she was proud of her team’s effort, despite the loss.
“I’m really, really proud of this team. ‘Grit’ is our big word this year, because we went through a lot of adversity over the summer, losing some key players. And I just felt like they fought tooth-and-nail the whole game,” the second-year head coach said.
“I’m incredibly proud of their overall performance and I told ’em all to walk out with their heads held high tonight.”
And while it wasn’t easy, Short said he was proud of the way his team fought Tuesday, finding a way to win under adverse circumstances.
“I was really proud of the girls,” he said. “I mean, we were definitely not happy with the first half. But I thought they did a really good job of taking a deep breath, coming back out in the second half and kind of doing what we do a little bit more.”
LOOKING AHEAD: Bell and Lepley, the sophomore wings, led Mount Vernon in scoring Tuesday with 12 points apiece. Williams and Rieder each added 6, and Thompson had 4.
East Knox sophomore Ella Divan led all scorers with 16 points. Sydney Opfer, the Bulldogs’ sophomore center, tallied 9, while senior guard Raelyn Todd added 5.
The Bulldogs, currently 1-5 in the Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference, will play in the Wayne Roller Holiday Tournament at Mansfield Christian this weekend before hosting the Flames on Jan. 5 and Danville on Jan. 7.
Todd believes her team can shake things up in the KMAC in 2023, as long as it stays the course.
“The most frustrating thing about this team is we have all the elements, we just haven’t developed the consistency yet. We’ve battled through a lot of sickness and injury. I missed a game; we’ve had girls miss games. So if we can play at our best, or even close, I think we can win most of our league games from here on out,” Todd said.
“We’ve just had such a disruptive season up to this point. And I think we just keep telling the girls, ‘It’s back to 0-0 now.’ League play starts over again (in January), and I think there isn’t anyone that we can’t take on, if we play consistent.”
Mount Vernon hosts Ashland on Thursday. The Yellow Jackets, currently 3-4 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference, will look to complete the season sweep of the Arrows after winning the first matchup 44-33 on Nov. 29.
Short believes his team has plenty of room to grow as it heads into the second round of conference play.
“(Ashland is) super young, and we’re pretty young, too. … They played Mansfield Senior to a really close fourth quarter, so they’re gonna be hungry to come get us. I know they’re gonna be hungry to come get us. So man, if we could close out this week – and we’re gonna come back to practice and clean up a lot tomorrow – and go in and battle against Ashland, that would put us at 4-4 in the league,” Short said.
“I am really happy with the progress we’ve (made). … We don’t have a lot of experience, but these girls are fighting. Last week in practice, we took a huge step in the right direction – the second half we did. We had that little break there, and I think that killed a little momentum, so we’ve gotta get that back going into the second half of league play.”
