GHS opens 2009 with loss to Northview

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Teammates Chelsea Samuels (22) and Kelsey Wainman (35) battle a Northview player for a rebound during Tuesday's matchup.

It was a rough start to 2009 for the Greencastle girls' basketball team. They were unable to find themselves on offense and struggled on the defensive end in a 55-44 loss to Northview.

Like the saying goes, when it Raines it pours, as the Tiger Cubs had no answer the Knights' Spring Raines. She dumped 30 points on the Tiger Cubs and proved to be a thorn in their side throughout the contest.

"We tried various things, but she's just quicker than anybody we have," GHS head coach Glenn Hile said.

GHS started strong by scoring the first four points on the game. After getting down early, they fought back to a 13-all tie, but that would be the closest the Tiger Cubs would come to the Knights.

Northview led at the half 25-15, with Raines accounting for 17 of those points. Greencastle had a balanced scoring attack, but they shot 31 percent from the floor in the first half and had zero trips to the line.

After the contest, Hile acknowledged it was a combination of factors that caused the Tiger Cubs fits on Tuesday.

"I saw a team first of all that hasn't played since Dec. 13. We were out of sync offensively -- really bad," he commented. "We've got to find ourselves defensively, we're not playing very good defense and we haven't for a while, even before break. We're not helping very well when we were in man-to-man. I thought our zone was effective, but we lost (Spring) Raines on a couple of occasions and she buries threes."

The Tiger Cubs did a better job in the second half and showed that they were able to stick with Northview. They scored 29 points to Northview's 30 in the second half, but the damage had been done.

Senior Becky Grivas flexed some muscle and powered her way inside, scoring 11 of her team-high 13 points in the half. Greencastle began to rebound the ball more effectively in the half, but Hile noted they struggled with blocking out and need to address that.

In addition to Grivas, Hannah Spencer had 10 points and Kayla Nobles chipped in six. Chelsea Samuels, Cassie Alspaugh and Mallory Miller scored five each in the 55-44 loss.

The single aspect of the game that probably did in the Tiger Cubs was Northview's use of a zone defense. Hile commented that his team put up some ill-advised shots throughout the game and just did not execute up to their potential.

"Bottom line is, we should have scored over 50 points in this game too. Granted, our defense wasn't very good, but we were so out of sync offensively -- we were just helter skelter," he said. "(We had) no patience and we passed up shots we had because we lost a little confidence early and we just have to do a better job of executing our offense."

Greencastle will head to Speedway for a 6 p.m. tip Friday.

At Greencastle

Northview 11 14 17 13 -- 55

Greencastle 8 7 14 15 -- 44

Northview -- Spring Raines 30, Kimball 10, Sampson 6, Stormi Raines 5, Phillips 2, Searing 2. Totals: 21-45 FG 9-10 FT 55 TP

Greencastle -- Grivas 13, Spencer 10, Nobles 6, Samuels 5, Alspaugh 5, M. Miller 5. Totals: 18-50 FG 5-8 FT 44 TP

3-pt. FG -- NV 4 (Spring Raines 3, Stormi Raines), GHS 3 (Alspaugh, M. Miller, Nobles)

Next game -- Greencastle will head to Speedway for a 6 p.m. tip Friday.

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