LAFAYETTE — Edie Morrow, aka “Skinny Zion”, and the Erie Tigers raced past the Thornton Trojans in the second half of the opening game of the BVI tournament en route to a 73-37 win.

Most fans of college basketball will know the name Zion Williamson, and probably remember him blowing out of his shoe in the early minutes of Duke’s matchup against North Carolina a year ago. 

Tonight, Morrow’s shoe ripped at the midsole during the second half, prompting Coach Pfeifer to call her “Skinny Zion” on the sidelines with a laugh as the Centaurus trainer used athletic tape to put her shoe back together.

Unlike Zion, though, Morrow was fine, and finished with a career high 10 points. For an Erie (3-0) team that has several other high-profile scoring options, including Deb Altshuler and Grace Moyers, who both had 15 and 13 points respectively, and “G” Gudino, who had 16, Morrow showed that she could be another scorer for the Tigers. In addition, Morrow was all over the floor defensively with around five steals (official stats are out in the morning) and several jaw-dropping assists.

Morrow was quick to credit her teammates for their success “We had some good passing and I feel like we played as a team (tonight)”

“I tell everybody our strength is in our depth. I believe that. This is a true team in that we’ve got seven kids that can put 20 on the board any night,” said Coach Pfeifer.

Their depth showed up in another way – in Kalyssa Berringer’s first opportunity to get early game varsity action.

“I’ve had trust in her, we had a preseason tournament down in Arapahoe, and I put her in (the game) in some very important minutes at the end of the game. She didn’t try to do too much, she took care of the basketball, and from that moment on I knew that she was going to be able to come in and do that for us.”

“I thought she did a great job of knowing her role, knowing what we needed her to do, being athletic, being a beast on the boards, and taking care of it on the defensive end.”

As for the atmosphere, it was lacking, and it showed in the first half of play.

“It takes getting used to playing in a gym with not a lot of people,” Pfeifer said.“To Erie’s credit, we’ve had great crowds our first two home games, and tonight there just wasn’t very many people in the gym, so it was hard for them to dig deep and find that effort without that backing.”

In the second half, though, Erie opened with a full-court press, which sparked them offensively and excited the fans who came.

“We picked up the pressure full court for a little bit. I think that helped their mindset to be aggressive, to pressure the basketball, and to be out in passing lanes.”

It worked, as the Tigers outscored the Trojans (3-1) 34-12 in the second half and didn’t allow a made field goal in the fourth quarter.

Erie will move on in the tournament to face the winner of Silver-Creek and Greeley West. Thornton, who was led by Shamahra Henderson with 17 points, will play the loser. Both of those games will be on Thursday.

Box Score

Moyers – 7, 0-0, 15

Altshuler – 7, 1-1, 15

Gudino – 7, 0-0, 14

Morrow – 4, 1-4, 10

Hefner – 5, 0-0, 10

Barnett – 1, 3-6, 4

Berringer – 1, 0-0, 2

Pickering – 1, 0-0, 2