Jones hits for 23 in Lady Hawks win

BURLINGTON — It took Central Lee’s Taylor Jones 34 seconds to get her first points of the game.
It was only the beginning.
Jones scored 23 points as the Hawks defeated Notre Dame 65-48 on Tuesday night.
Central Lee coach Taylor Hickey was looking for more production out of her team, and she got it as the Hawks moved to 6-5 overall, 6-3 in the SEISC South Division.
Jones, a senior, came into the game averaging 7.9 points per game. But her offense was sparked by her defense, steals that were turned into layups.
“After the first couple of steals, I think I just wanted more,” Jones said. “Once you get a couple, you get hungry for them. I got off to a good start.”
Jones said the Hawks’ total effort on defense helped her get the ball.
“Our guards did a super good job pressing, pressuring them up top, so they had to pass it,” Jones said. “It’s never going to be a perfect pass, so that just allowed me to get the steals. Their hard work made the difference for all of us.”

“Outstanding effort on her part,” Hickey said of Jones. “Tonight it's like she let her body and her athleticism just play in going for those steals, and the anticipation helped her game. And I continue to say it — our offense comes from our defense, and we have energy on defense. When we bring it, we do a little better offensively.”
Hickey has been looking for help for Kenna Sandoval, who leads the Hawks in scoring at 17.5 points per game. Sandoval, surrounded by the Nikes’ defense all night, finished with 16 points. But Jones’ contributions, along with Nora Lampe’s 15 points and Jayden Mueller’s six points off two second-half 3-pointers, were a sign of Central Lee getting more balance.
“We needed more of our girls to start contributing more into the game,” Hickey said. “We’ve lacked that confidence in our outside shooting. Nora is obviously one of our good main shooters, but we’ve been striving to get more of our players involved. Tonight we did that.
“Teams are going to be honing in on Kenna. And so we needed other kids to step up. And I think they showed themselves they can do it.”
“Nora made a lot of threes,” Jones said. “Kenna is in there working her butt off. When a couple of girls are having a good game, it gets us through. But when all the girls have a good game, it’s huge.”
It took a little while for the Hawks to shake the Nikes, though. Notre Dame (1-12,1-8) led 21-15 at the end of the first quarter. Central Lee finally took the lead for good when Lampe hit back-to-back 3-pointers for the Hawks to go up 32-27. They would never trail again.
“We’ve got to wake up and get more adrenaline going in warmups,” Hickey said. “We can't wait until the second or third quarter to get going. Other teams will take big advantage of that.”
Kaitlyn Kipp led Notre Dame with 17 points. Kinsey Cameron had 12.