Athenians steal away win at North Putnam

North Putnam senior Madi Asbell draws a foul on a successful layup during the second on Tuesday. (Banner Graphic/GRANT WIEMAN)

ROACHDALE -- The North Putnam girls' basketball team opened its season by hosting Crawfordsville on Tuesday and the Cougars played like it was the first game of the year.

North Putnam had 30 turnovers and went the first 10 minutes of the second half without a basket in the 55-29 loss.

"We're not a good enough ball club yet where we can go 0-for in a quarter," NPHS coach Curtis Lawrence said. "Crawfordsville's coach does a nice job with those kids. They're quick, they're active and we had that same issue with them last year in the first game of the season."

Sophomore Taylor Nauert was the Cougars best player. She finished with 12 points, nine rebounds and four assists, but she also had several rebounds get stripped away by Crawfordsville senior Sarah Jones.

Jones finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

North Putnam struggled to find open passing lanes throughout the first half, the opening quarter in particular.

The Cougars had 14 of their 30 turnovers in the first eight minutes and fell behind 19-6.

"Lacey Garrett does a nice job of running the point for them," Lawrence said. "She's got quick hands, she's very active. They are a quicker ball club than us."

Junior Lacey Garrett, sophomore Paige Schueren and senior Kassidy Bonebrake had three steals each in the first quarter, showing late to passing lanes and taking advantage of ball pressure created from their half-court trap.

The Cougars had prepared for it, Lawrence said, but they had no way to simulate the Athenians speed.

Garrett finished with 12 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and eight steals and thoroughly controlled the game on both sides of the court.

Bonebrake, another player NPHS was keying on, had 16 points and seven steals but shot just 6-for-20 from the floor.

"We wanted to take her out of it," Lawrence said. "We wanted to make other people beat us and they had other people beat us tonight."

Once North Putnam got used to Crawfordsville's quickness and adjusted to the pace of the game, it started to take better care of the ball and battle more successfully on the glass.

The Athenians led by 14 at halftime, but the Cougars shot much better from the field, matched them with 18 rebounds each and attempted 10 free throws.

Defensively NPHS was solid all night, dropping back into a 2-3 zone that kept Crawfordsville out of the paint and forced deeper, low-percentage shots, but the Athenians scored many of their points in transition before North Putnam could set up its defense.

Offensively, the Cougars seemed to lose focus after the sloppy start. They began missing layups, stopped driving to the basket and were held scoreless in the second half until senior Madi Asbell made a steal and layup at the 5:17 mark of the fourth quarter.

Asbell finished with seven points, four rebounds and two steals. Senior Bethany Wiatt had five points, four rebounds and two assists. Junior Morgan Smith had three points on 1-for-12 shooting and added five rebounds.

Senior Alex Land, making her first start for the Cougars, had four steals.

North Putnam showed flashes of quality play, particularly when they were aggressive and drove to the hoop instead of settling for outside shots. The aggression is something the team will devote significant practice time to, Lawrence said.

"We're going to spend tomorrow night and Thursday morning doing nothing but shooting and working on block-outs and getting position," he said, "and just physically being stronger with the ball. Crawfordsville did a nice job being physical with us and that's on us."

The Cougars are off until Saturday when they host Danville at 7:30 p.m.

North Putnam sophomore Taylor Nauert draws a foul on a fast break layup attempt after getting a steal in the fourth quarter against Crawfordsville on Tuesday. (Banner Graphic/GRANT WIEMAN)

CRAWFORDSVILLE (55)
Garrett 6-12 0-4 12, Schueren 4-12 2-2 6, Bonebrake 6-20 1-2 16, Greer 3-6 0-0 6, Jones 3-6 4-4 10, Goodnight 0-1 0-0 0, Wallace 0-2 0-0 0, Garcia 0-0 0-0 0. Total 23-62 7-13 55.
North Putnam (29)
Wiatt 2-4 0-4 5; Asbell 3-9 1-1 7; Land 0-1 0-0 0; Clodfelter 0-0 0-2 0; Nauert 5-11 2-2 12; Smith 1-12 0-2 3; Mindiola 1-3 0-0 2; Evans 0-0 0-0 0; Laffin 0-1 0-0 0. Total 12-42 3-11 29.