GHS ends Cloverdale's streak with 52-24 victory
CLOVERDALE -- It took the Lady Tiger Cubs three quarters to realize they were playing basketball, but once they did it was all over for Cloverdale.
Greencastle chopped down the Lady Clovers 52-24 in its first West Central Conference of the season Friday night.
"It was a challenge to get them going, especially in the first quarter," GHS coach Brad Key said.
For the majority of the first period, Greencastle had only scored two points from free throws by Chelsea Samuels and Alyssa Nichols. But big a three-pointer from Mallory Miller and two inside buckets from Samuels, Greencastle found itself up 9-2 after the first.
Then in the second quarter, Greencastle lit up the scoreboard, outscoring Cloverdale 15-2 with Samuels chipping in nine of those points. They walked into the locker room leading 24-8 at the half.
"Chelsea Samuels had a fantastic game and I told her before the game tonight that we need to have her putting up 20-22 points a game," Key said.
Samuels took Keys words and turned them into a reality. She finished the night with 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the floor and 4-of-11 from the charity stripe.
"We're still working on her free throw shooting," Key said. "But we are getting there."
At the start of the second half, Greencastle found itself back at square one, struggling to get its offense going.
"We just made some silly turnovers tonight," Key said. ""We are still working on knowing the game of basketball.
"We went on a dry spell for a while tonight. We had a lot of shots go in and out tonight. More than I have seen at other gyms," Key added.
That dry spell ended in the final quarter of Friday's contest when the Lady Tiger Cubs mowed the Clovers down 22-11en rout to the final 52-24.
Tenille Burgeson finally got the rim to accept her shot instead of kicking it out like a pinball machine and the same for Nichols. Burgeson went 2-for-4 in the fourth, but was 0-for-3 in the third.
"Kayla Nobles had like five shots bounce out tonight and the same for Tenille," Key said, "I know Tenille can shoot the ball and it's coming. I just can't wait for her to hit knock down three or four three-points in a row like I know she can."
The one thing that Key did give Cloverdale credit for was shutting down Mallory Miller.
"They did a good job of shutting her down," Key said. "They were chasing her all night long."
Miller tallied only nine points for the evening and that is something that Tom Anderson was happy about.
"Defensively, I thought we hustled and shut down their top scorer," the Cloverdale coach said. "We also made some adjustments in the second half and Samuels didn't hurt us as bad."
Samuels only produced eight points in the second half compared to the 14 in the first two quarters.
"You can't fault the effort," Anderson said. "I would say that we are one of the more improved teams from the start of the season to now. We still have a long way to go, but you can't fault the effort.
"I told the girls that I was this close (holding his index finger and thumb slightly apart) from being as happy as I was when we won the other day. That close because we didn't win but we put up a good defensive effort."
Greencastle will be back in action on Thursday when they host Rockville starting at 6:30 p.m. while Cloverdale takes on Monrovia on Friday in another WCC match up starting at 6 p.m.
At Cloverdale
Cloverdale 2 6 5 11 -- 24
Greencastle 9 15 6 22 -- 52
Cloverdale -- McCammon 5 1-2 11, Anderson 2 0-1 2, Rightmyer 1 0-0 2, Gutierrez 3 0-0 2, Oetken 0 2-2 2, 31 0 1-2 1. Totals 11 FG, 4-7, TP 24.
Greencastle -- Nobles 1 2-2 5, Burgeson 3 0-1 6, Nichols 2 1-2 5, Samuels 9 4-11 22, Babington 1 0-0 2, Brotherton 1 0-1 3, Miller 4 0-0 9. Totals -- FG 21, FT 7-17, TP 52.
Next Games -- Greencastle will be back in action on Thursday when they host Rockville starting at 6:30 p.m. while Cloverdale takes on Monrovia on Friday in another WCC match up starting at 6 p.m.