Clovers fall to North Falcons in consolation contest

Saturday, December 31, 2011

The 2011 portion of the Cloverdale boys' basketball season came to an end Friday night, falling in the consolation game of the Eagle Holiday Classic to North Vermillion 50-35.

Both sides started strong as the Clovers hung neck-and-neck with the Falcons, finding themselves down by three after the first period.

Play slowed in the second period as North Vermillion's combination of Dalton McCool and Brayden Woodard were able to impose themselves on the game.

Scoring quickly became hard to come by as halftime approached, though the Clovers briefly whittled the lead down to two, before a late surge saw North Vermillion head into the break up 34-26.

Both squads struggled in the second half as the physicality of the game increased. Neither side created many open looks as the teams combined to score 25 total points in the second half.

Cloverdale, however, was outscored in each period and found themselves heading into the new year sporting a 1-9 record.

Cloverdale head coach Pat Rady said the squad couldn't be worried about the record but the way they had been playing.

"I think we shot 10 for 30 in the paint, and you can't miss 20 shots inside the lane. We still had 20 turnovers, which is way too many. There's just a lot of things we need to work on," Rady said.

"That's where we're going to start Tuesday. We look forward to the new year and forgetting this," Rady added.

"I told them to forget about the record. Starting Tuesday, we're 0-0, and we're going to see where we go from there."

At South Putnam

Eagle Holiday Classic

North Vermillion 19 15 11 5 -- 50

Cloverdale 16 10 7 2 -- 35

Individual Scoring

North Vermillion -- McCool 16, Woodard 14, Kilgore 9, Weaver 6, Zumwalt 5

Cloverdale -- B. Dorman 8, Z. Dorman 8, Fidler 8, Williams 4, Strunk 4, Collett 3

Next game -- Cloverdale travels to Covenant Christian next Friday.