Eagles struggle with Edgewood

Monday, February 25, 2008

Coming off two well-played games recently where South Putnam scored in excess of 70 points, Coach Brian Gardner had reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

Unfortunately Friday evening, powerful 3A Edgewood was not about to let the Eagles can a pittance of confidence.

Manhandled and outplayed in every facet of the game, South could not hold a candle to All-State Candidate Garrett Butcher and the rest of the sharpo-shooting Mustangs, as they soundly defeated the Eagles, 76-38, in a game that could have had considerably more disparity.

At the 2:16 mark of the first quarter, Edgewood held an 18-4 lead. It was obvious then, this would be a long night for the home team.

By halftime, Butcher had collected 10 points and Jacob Thornton netted 10, more than the entire South lineup. At intermission, the score was 41-17, Edgewood.

After the break, the pace seemed to slow a bit, until around the three minute mark, when the Mustangs went on a 14-2 run to take a commanding 63-29 lead going into the final eight minutes.

Butcher sat for the entire fourth period, much as he had done against Greencastle and Cloverdale earlier in the year. Consequently, South was able to stop the profuse bleeding a bit in a turnover-plagued fourth quarter, leading to the 76-38 final.

Gardner tried to extrude some positives from the shellacking: "Tri-West (the Eagles' sectional opponent does a lot of the same things that Edgewood does, so we were able to learn from that tonight. We've had five different guys sick this week, so it was hard to get any consistency in practice. They're just a very good team," Gardner concluded.

At South Putnam

Edgewood 20 21 22 13 -- 76

South Putnam 6 11 18 9 -- 38

Next game -- South Putnam hosts Tri-West in game three of the South Putnam sectional at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

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