No. 5 Danville wears down Clovers, wins 55-32

Cloverdale’s Sammie Shrum makes a clean block against Peyton Turner of Danville on Tuesday.

Photo courtesty of Hendricks County Flyer

DANVILLE — The Cloverdale Clovers added the Danville Warriors to their girls’ basketball schedule this year in order to face tougher competition.

Unfortunately, Danville is ranked No. 5 in Class 3A and has one of the area’s best players in Ella Collier, and that led to a 55-32 defeat at the hands of the Warriors Tuesday night.

The Clovers jumped out to an 18-12 lead early in the second quarter, but Danville went on a 15-2 run over the second and third periods to snuff out the Cloverdale upset bid.

Danville improved to 4-1, while Cloverdale dropped its first game of the year and is now 4-1 also.

“I wanted to see how we would fare against top-caliber competition. In the past tough teams would jump on us early, but tonight we came out and played well until they went on their run,” Cloverdale head coach Matthew Langdon said.

The Clovers certainly fared well in the early going. Cloverdale’s Kassie Wade hit a pair of three-pointers and Laikkan Price picked up a couple of buckets in the first period to spark the Clovers.

An old-fashioned three-point play by Madison Shoemaker gave the Clovers a 15-12 lead at the end of the first quarter, but it could have been much more. Cloverdale missed four or five open layups in the quarter and thoroughly outplayed the Warriors.

“It was a missed opportunity tonight,” Langdon said. “We missed some open layups and had our chance. If you are up 10 or 15 points early, it makes a big difference when they go on their run.”

Hailey Thomas hit a trey to open the second quarter, but then the run began for Danville. The Warriors outscored the Clovers 11-1 to finish the half and take a 23-19 lead to the locker room.

The Clovers struggled offensively in the quarter as they turned the ball over six times and hit just 1-of-8 from the field and 1-of-6 from the free throw line.

“The girls gave great effort, but that run took a little of the energy out of us. We still had the effort. This was what we needed to see going into the county tourney,” Langdon said.

The long, athletic Warriors continued to extend their lead after halftime. They outscored the Clovers 17-6 in the period. Cloverdale struggled with the long, athletic Danville squad as the scoring opportunities were shut down by Danville and the Warriors began asserting themselves on the boards by outrebounding the Clovers 9-5 in the third quarter to lead 40-25 at the end of the third quarter.

“We really struggled with their height, but I thought we battled really hard and competed well. We won’t see too many teams with this kind of size,” Langdon said.

Danville finished the game strong but the Clovers battled defensively all night and made the Warriors work for every point they got.

“We did a pretty good job defensively. We went man-to-man against them and played them tough all night. This is different for us as we have always been a zone program,” Langdon said.

Collier led all scorers with 21 points and Maddie Patterson added 15 for Danville.

Cloverdale’s Laikkan Price had 10 points and seven rebounds to lead the way for the visitors.

“Laikkan had a really good opening game (South Putnam) and has struggled offensively a little, but really battled tonight. She did a good job against their height,” Langdon said.

The Clovers will take on the South Putnam Eagles in the opener of the Putnam County Classic on Friday night.

CLOVERDALE (32) — Shrum 0-12 3-6 3, Wade 2-7 0-0 6, Combs 2-10 0-0 4, Thomas 1-6 1-2 4, Price 4-4 2-7 10, Shoemaker 1-2 1-3 3, Lewellen 0-0 0-0 0, Byford 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 11-41 FG, 7-18 FT, 32 TP.

DANVILLE (55) — Davis 4-9 1-2 9, Gould 0-1 0-1 0, Turner 2-3 1-2 6, Collier 10-18 1-1 21, Patterson 5-13 3-4 15, Godwin 1-4 2-2 4, Pettijohn 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-48 FG, 8-12 FT, 55 TP.

3-point shooting — CHS 3-20 (Shrum 0-7, Wade 2-6, Thomas 1-6, Combs 0-1), DHS 0-5 (Gould 0-1, Turner 1-1, Collier 0-1, Patterson 2-4, Godwin 0-2). Rebounds — CHS 24 (Shrum 2, Wade 1, Combs 8, Price 7, Shoemaker 2, Byford 2), DHS 35 (Davis 7, Gould 7, Turner 3, Collier 5, Patterson 9, Godwin 1, Pettijohn 1). Turnovers — CHS 16, DHS 16.