Eagles shooting woes spell doom against Warriors

Wednesday, December 1, 2010
South Putnam sophomore Mallory Cash scored five points for the Eagles off the bench in its 53-32 loss to Danville.

GREENCASTLE -- The South Putnam girls' basketball squad was unable to overcome a big first half deficit and fell to Danville 53-32 Tuesday.

The Eagles were able to fight the Warriors closer in the second half, but the damage had already been done. Danville held a 28-14 advantage at the half and was able to build on it throughout the second half.

"I appreciated the fact they didn't give up," Eagle head coach Debbie Steffy said. "We got down early and we came back -- we had some fight in us and we came back. Then they came back and built another lead on us and we came back and we able to knock that down. The second half I thought we played hard. We just couldn't find the basket tonight."

Steffy said she wasn't sure of the team's shooting percentage, but knew they got good shots, but were not able to knock them down. On the other hand, she said it felt like Danville hit everything they put up. She noted how difficult it is to play in a situation like that.

"It's tough to play that way if you're not scoring and they're -- it's tough to be in a game," Steffy said. "It's demoralizing to some point sometimes you don't make those shots and they're making shots.

"To our kids' credit, like I said, I don't think they gave up. They understood we have to keep after it. We have to keep working. They're a fun group of kids to be around. They work hard, they work well together and we'll get it turned around. We'll get it righted because they want to," she said.

The Eagles fell behind early, going down 12-0, but fought back to cut the lead to 14-9 after one. They only scored five in the second quarter as their shooting woes continued.

South Putnam was able to convert 4-of-10 from the field in the third quarter and was outscored by a mere two points. But the iron turned unkind once again in the fourth as they knocked down only 2-of-10.

The Eagles sit at 1-4 on the season and Steffy thinks if her team can begin to knock down some shots and do the little things, they'll be able to turn the corner.

"I think we have some games coming up, like our next game is at South Vermillion. They're going to be like Danville. They have some people who can shoot the three, they have a good post player inside, and they have some quickness. After that we play Cascade and they're very good. I think just the whole -- we play hard every game, I think they'll see that," she said.

Steffy said a goal for the game was to have less than 15 turnovers and by her stats they had exactly 15. That is one aspect of the game the team needs to continue to improve upon.

"It's those little things that whenever we tweak those and we fix those, that's helping us to get over that hump," she said. "The only problem is everyone else improves too as the season goes.

"Our shots, they start going down, that's going to put us over the hump. We have good shooters on our team, we have kids that can knock down shots, we're just not in a game right now, and we're just not able to do that," Steffy said.

The Eagles received some nice minutes from their bench Tuesday, including Mallory Cash, who scored five points. It's a team attitude that Steffy likes to see and believes will help them to continue to improve.

"We played all eight kids and Liz Comer came in off the JV," Steffy said. "She played there in the third quarter when we ended up getting some people in foul trouble and we needed someone out there on the perimeter.

"Everybody does their part. Everybody understands they have to come in and do their part for us to be successful. You can't ask for a better group of kids in that respect. Like I said, they just work hard. They come in and they know what they have to do and try to get it done. You can't ask for anything more than that," she said.

Jenna Jones led the team with seven points. She was followed by Ericka Minor with six and Cash, Kelsey Searles and Kelsey Whitaker with five each.

In junior varsity action, South Putnam went to overtime with Danville before ultimately falling to the Warriors 40-28.

The Warriors tied the game at 28-all with less than 10 seconds left in regulation.

South Putnam will be on the road against South Vermillion next Tuesday with the junior varsity tipping at 6 p.m.

At South Putnam

Danville 14 14 13 12 -- 53

South Putnam 9 5 11 7 -- 32

Individual Stats

Danville -- Taylor 17, Hall 12, Collier 10, Elliott 5, Gould 5, Moore 4.

South Putnam -- Jones 7, Minor 6, Cash 5, Searles 5, Whitaker 5, Masters 4.

Next game -- South Putnam will be on the road against South Vermillion next Tuesday with the junior varsity tipping at 6 p.m.