Eagle girls top Eminence 67-19 to end five game losing streak

Friday, January 4, 2013
South Putnam senior Leanna Masters scores a layup to open the game against Eminence. Masters finished with 11 points. (Banner Graphic/GRANT WIEMAN)

The South Putnam girls' basketball cruised to a comfortable win in its first game since Dec. 13, beating Eminence 67-19 on Thursday.

It was the Eagles' first win since Nov. 20.

"We wanted to set the tone from the beginning of being aggressive and that helped us," SPHS head coach Lindsey Blackman said. "The first half was just not taking anything for granted, play our game, play hard. Once we built the lead it was more, 'OK, let's work on ourselves. Let's work on going through the offense. Not looking for the first shot, but seeing what the best shot is.'"

Eminence (1-10) has struggled this season and the Eagles used the game, and long layoff, to try to jumpstart their team.

"I feel like we started off the year really focusing on (overall team defense)," Blackman said. "We started the season off wanting to be a pressing team, and it didn't work for us. So over break we made that kind of a focus of working on our press; getting Leanna (Masters) in the habit of not getting back in transition and setting it up. We wanted to work on that from the beginning of the game."

SPHS took a 24-7 lead after the first quarter, but still seemed out of sync.

The Eagles' 21-0 run to open the second quarter is when things truly began to click.

Masters, a senior scored seven of her 11 points in the quarter. She also hauled in six total rebounds while sitting out much of the second half.

With all but the final score decided by halftime (SPHS led 45-9 at the break), the Eagles were able to focus on execution for much of the second half.

They had zero three-point attempts after the break, and worked each possession to an extra pass and quality shot.

"The best comment of the game was, (junior) Aubrey Nichols at some point said, 'Wow, our offense works when we run all the way through it.'" Blackman said. "Just being able to do that ... Sometimes we get so much into the heat of the game we just start throwing up that first shot instead of looking for the best one."

Four Eagles reached double-digit scoring, including Masters, senior Mattie Varvel, 11, senior Mallory Cash, 10, and junior Amanda Barnes, 10.

Senior Nikki York pulled in a game-high eight rebounds.

The Eagles will face a much stiffer challenge on Tuesday when they play at Riverton Parke (11-1).



At South Putnam
Eminence 7 2 4 6 -- 19
South Putnam 24 21 12 10 -- 67

Individual scoring
Eminence: Gore 3-10, 1-2, 7; Moore 2-2, 0-0, 4; Hall 2-4, 0-0, 4; Stierwalt 1-4, 0-0, 2; Foote 1-2, 0-0, 2; Jobes 0-9, 0-0, 0; Belcher 0-3, 0-0, 0; Ninitte 0-0, 0-0, 0; Storm 0-2, 0-0, 0.
South Putnam: Masters 5-6, 1-2, 11; Varvel 4-10, 3-3, 11; Cash 4-7, 0-0, 10; Barnes 5-9, 0-0, 10; Hewitt 4-8, 0-1, 8; Nichols 3-8, 0-0, 6; York 1-4, 2-2, 5; Cundiff 1-3, 3-4, 5; Birt 0-0, 1-2, 1; Whitaker 0-2, 1-2, 1; Dobson 0-1, 0-0, 0.

Team scoring (three-pointers)
Eminence 9-36 (0-4), 1-3, 19; South Putnam 27-58 (2-4), 11-15, 67.

Rebounds (offensive)
Eminence 19 (5); South Putnam 41 (17).

Turnovers
Eminence 29; South Putnam 14.

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