Clovers battle tough Bruin squad

Monday, December 19, 2011

CLOVERDALE -- After a rough outing at Monrovia Friday night, Cloverdale's boys' basketball team lost in a competitive 56-43 loss to Tri-West.

Without starter Brody Pfaff, who was out with a leg injury, the Clovers were down to a six-man rotation against a Bruin squad that regularly rotated in nine players.

The game started slowly as Cloverdale found shots to be coming at a premium while the Bruins had trouble getting shots to fall with a more physical Clover defense in good positions.

The hosts would tie the game at 10-10 and 12-12 in the second quarter, but the offensive wheels fell off shortly thereafter.

A 15-0 Tri-West run for most of the second quarter led to the Clovers finding themselves down 30-19 going into halftime.

Without the ability to get fresh bodies in, Cloverdale again had trouble securing good shooting opportunities in the third quarter as the Bruins extended their lead to 16 points, with the Clovers only getting eight shots away in the quarter.

Cloverdale put in its best offensive production in the final period as the Clovers found their way to the free throw line on four separate occasions, knocking down all eight shots.

But they only got away eight shots as Tri-West whittled down the clock and left the Clovers stranded on one victory for the season.

The shot count, along with turnovers, were numbers that Cloverdale head coach Pat Rady noted in describing the game.

"They got about twice as many shots as we did. We didn't block out well and they got second shots and third shots. You can't give a team that many shots," Rady said.

"I thought there were some areas where we did look better from last night. But there's still the turnovers.

"It wasn't a total loss. We had a practice this morning and threw some things in. I thought they handled the certain defenses, which is something we talked about having to do," Rady added.

"But we still can't have the turnovers we're having. We've got to keep working on our ball handling and our passing. We've done drills and maybe we need to put more time into it.

"I think we need some time where we can just have a good, hard, dedicated practice and iron out some of those things."

Eastern Greene travels to Cloverdale on Tuesday and injury concerns are the biggest issue facing the Clovers.

Mitch Williams and Chuck Strunk both briefly left Saturday's game but returned to action later. With depth a concern, Rady said some JV players may be needed in the near future.

"We're down to six guys who are strictly varsity so we may have to take some guys from the JV. They haven't been with us to some extent so we need some time to get those guys in and have a bench," Rady said.

"When we look at our stats, our starters have scored 17 more points than the other teams' starters. We just don't have a great depth, so we've got to work on that."

At Cloverdale

Tri-West 8 22 14 12 -- 56

Cloverdale 6 13 9 15 -- 43

Indivdual scoring

Tri-West -- 21-57 FG, 9-26 3-FG, 5-6 FT

A. Hendershot 19, Waite 11, Chastain 9, Tucker 8, Phelps 4, Koelling 3, Wolfe 2

Cloverdale -- 13-31 FG, 5-13 3-FG, 12-15 FT

B. Dorman 11, Williams 10, Schroer 9, Fidler 7, Collett 4, Strunk 2

Next game -- Cloverdale hosts Eastern Greene Tuesday.