North Putnam girls' hoops falls to Fountain Central 45-29

VEEDERSBURG -- The North Putnam Cougars girls' basketball team traveled to Fountain Central in the snow on Saturday afternoon to take on the Mustangs and made the slow trek back with a 45-29 loss.

"(We played) tired. Last night was the first game for us in a month and then having back-to-back games. We came out sluggish and they started out on a run real quick," NPHS coach Curtis Lawrence said.

The Cougars just could not get their offensive game going until the fourth quarter and the Mustangs started the game on a 7-0 run. At the end of the first quarter the Mustangs led 11-2.

The Cougars stiffened up offensively and defensively in the second quarter and made a run but could not get closer than five.

"Our defense settled in a little bit and kept us in the ballgame but we struggled mightily on the offensive end tonight," Lawrence said.

Fountain Central was spreading the ball around to everyone on the court in the first half, but in the second half when North Putnam switched to a full court press they continually found freshman Maggie Fishero underneath the basket for an easy layup.

Fishero scored a game-high 20 points, and 14 of those came in the second half.

Despite trailing by 18 at one point in the game, the Cougars battled back and did not let this game turn into a blow out.

"That is a characteristic that this team has. They are going to fight for 32 minutes regardless of what the score is and regardless of who is on the floor. To their credit they constantly fight no matter what the scoreboard says," Lawrence said.

North Putnam's sophomore center Taylor Nauert led the team with nine rebounds but only had four points on 1-of-2 shooting.

"She played better today than she did yesterday. We still need Taylor to step up offensively and become more of a threat. She should be getting 10 to 12 shots a game easily," Lawrence said. "She has been tentative and we need her to step up if we are going to continue to grow as a team."

The Cougars played a 2-3 zone as they have most of the season and once the game got going, it seemed to work pretty well.

"Once we got over that 7-0 start we settled in a little bit and we started to close out on shooters a little bit better," Lawrence said.

The Cougars found out one main thing they will have to work on next week, but with minimal practice time it will be hard to do.

"Stamina. We have three games next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday so there's not a lot of practice time. I told them to get plenty of rest tomorrow and to come in on Monday ready to go," Lawrence said.

At Fountain Central

Turnovers NP 18, FC 17. Fouls NP 20, FC 14.