Tough second quarter dooms Cloverdale against Bulldogs

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Had the rest of the game carried on like the first four minutes of the first quarter, Cloverdale's boys' basketball squad might have won handily on their travel to Monrovia Friday night.

A shooting power outage instead followed as the Clovers fell to the host Bulldogs 67-38.

Cloverdale rocketed out into the lead after Chuck Strunk and Joe Fidler hit back-to-back-to-back three pointers, giving the Clovers an 11-2 lead.

But the strong start soon dissipated as the visitors would only muster eight more points before the half ended.

Between the time the Clovers held the early nine point advantage and halftime, they watched as Monrovia knocked down 7-of-12 three pointers and scored 36 points.

Led by twelve of Austin Sichting's game high fourteen, the Bulldogs took a 38-19 lead into halftime.

Cloverdale's offense continued to struggle as turnovers limited the Clovers to only eight shots in the third period. At the same time, Monrovia's nine-man rotation constantly pushed the tempo on both ends of the floor.

By quarter number four, both squads began to get bench players in as the Bulldogs notched their second win in the WCC, while Cloverdale remains on one win on the season.

Cloverdale head coach Pat Rady said afterwards that the loss was part of the learning curve for the Clovers.

"We're going to have nights like this, some growing pains. We had some great runs, and the some runs that weren't so great. The bad thing was that the runs that weren't so great outnumbered the ones that were," Rady said.

"We've got to work on our ball handling. Turnovers are still the thing that's really hurting us. If we could just lower our turnovers down to 10 or 12, I think we'd see a big difference in the game."

With two games still to play before the holiday break, Rady said that his squad can turnaround quickly, which will be needed Saturday night against Tri-West.

"This is the kind of ball club that can turnaround. We didn't play very well against South Putnam but in the second game, against North Putnam, we looked alive and played the best game we've played all year," Rady said.

"Hopefully we can do that this time. We've got a workout in the morning at 9:30. We'll look at the game tomorrow night, and when that game's over, we'll be looking at Tuesday night's game.

"We'll give them some time off and then we've got the South Putnam Eagle Classic on the 29th and 30th. We've just got to keep looking to the future and keep trying to get better."

At Monrovia

Cloverdale 14 5 11 8 -- 38

Monrovia 16 22 16 13 -- 67

Scoring

Cloverdale -- 14-36 FG, 4-13 3-FG, 6-11 FT

Fidler 10, Strunk 7, B. Dorman 7, Pfaff 5, Williams 3, Schroer 2, Z. Dorman 2, Thompson 2

Monrovia -- 27-62 FG, 11-24 3-FG, 2-3 FT

Sichting 14, Benefiel 12, Sowers 12, Casteel 11, Bolton 6, Gray 5, Fite 4, Dunbar