Throughout Hiland head coach Dave Schlabach's illustrious history, he hasn't always had the luxury of coaching up bigs, so this year with a quartet of talented big kids, he has taken every luxury in pounding the ball into the paint to Zoe Miller, Kelsey Swihart, Kendra Shetler and Aila Miller.

On Wednesday, Dec. 19 the Lady Hawks invaded Sugarcreek for a rivalry game. Schlabach went to his bigs early and often, and after Garaway built an early first-quarter lead, Hiland had its way and rolled to a big 64-37 win in the Inter-Valley Conference South showdown.

"Our perimeter game is not what we do best, so on nights like tonight, that is going to be a little ugly, but I thought we played hard and we played a lot of kids and gradually wore them down," Schlabach said. "I want this to be the best rebounding team we have ever had, and with Tiffany Weaver, our big kid, done for the year, it takes a lot of team effort for us to be a great rebounding team, so I was very pleased with that tonight. Zoe (Miller, who ended with 14 rebounds and 18 points) is a force, and I thought she played well."

Garaway head coach Dave Shutt realized his much smaller Lady Pirates were at a major disadvantage in the paint.

"When you get outrebounded like we did and they forced us into turnovers, you don't give yourself a very good chance," Shutt said. "I thought we played very hard but not very smart. The lack of screening out led to silly fouls that gave them two or three opportunities, and they scored off of our turnovers. With a good team like that, you can't afford to do that."

Garaway staked itself to the early 11-9 lead through one quarter with good hustle and scrappy defense, and a Chelsi Rothacher 3-pointer highlighted balanced attack, but a dark cloud hovered over the Lady P's as they got into some early foul trouble.

"We had three girls with two fouls in the first quarter and two with three in the second," Shutt said. "That's tough as a player because you want to play hard, but now you have to hold back. We battled early, but we gave them chances, and they made us pay."

The fouls hurt Garaway twofold. First, the Lady Pirates aren't deep, so they can ill-afford to have kids foul out. Second, the three girls in trouble were Zoe Johnson, Kallie Regula and Ashton Gerber, three of Garaway's best scorers.

Garaway hung around much of the second quarter but trailed 21-16, and then the Lady Hawks got on a roll with Kendra Shetler and Aila Miller both getting involved inside and Brynn Mullet knocking down a three-ball. When Morgan Yoder dropped in a triple to end the half, Hiland was in front 27-16.

Yoder made a steal and scored to begin the third period, and Hiland really went on the attack. The Lady Hawks began pounding the glass with a vengeance. It was Swihart and Zoe Miller teaming up for 15 points in the period, Swihart doing her best Erin Hostetler impersonation as she went inside and outside to hurt Garaway. That quarter saw Hiland add 13 more points between themselves, and the Lady Hawks were in command after three quarters 51-27.

Rothacher and Johnson both nailed threes in the fourth period, but Hiland's depth and inside game was simply too much on this night. Mullet scored five points including a triple, and Hiland then was able to play keep-away and run the clock to cruise to victory.

"I thought it was a good battle," Schlabach said following the win. "I didn't think we shot it particularly well in the first quarter, so it seemed ugly, but I thought we were getting good looks, and I loved the way we were rebounding the basketball."

Hiland did struggle from beyond the arc, hitting just 5-of-22 three-point attempts to Garaway's 5-of-8. However, inside the arc the Lady Hawks outscored Garaway 40 to 16, which was the difference. Hiland also forced Garaway into 29 big turnovers, many of those leading to easy Hiland scores. However, the most glaring statistic was on the glass, where Hiland held a monumental 47 to 14 rebounding edge over Garaway, which was exactly what Schlabach was looking for from his team.

Zoe Miller ended the night with 18 points, 14 rebounds and seven steals while Swihart added 14 points, Aila Miller had six points and five rebounds, and Shetler added six points and nine boards as Hiland showed off a dominant inside game. Mullet tacked on eight points while Yoder ran the point for Hiland and racked up a nice line of seven points, five assists and five steals.

Regula ended the night with a team-high 12 points and four rebounds while Johnson added 11 points, Rothacher added six points and Lizzie Mullet scored four. Gerber didn't add much in the scoring column, netting just two points, but she did a nice job elsewhere, collecting five assists and five steals.

"It's a good learning experience for us," Shutt said. "I like playing them. I wish we could play them 20 games because we would get a lot better."