Clovers come up short against Cadets

Cloverdale sophomore Kimmy Winders drives to the basket to score two of her seven points against Cascade. (Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT)

CLAYTON -- Taking on West Central Conference frontrunner Cascade was not going to be an easy task for the Cloverdale girls' basketball squad Friday night.

Facing a squad with three conference wins by an average of 31 points, the Clovers battled gamely and Cloverdale head coach Matthew Langdon said the effort was tremendous from his squad despite landing on the wrong side of a 57-44 loss,

"I was extremely happy with the fight of the team tonight," Langdon said. "We talked at halftime about that we've had a lot of bad third-quarters. We've come out of halftime and rolled over or not played well.

"We fought that entire second half. We outscored them in the second half with both first units in the game."

Cascade had throttled both North Putnam and South Putnam with a full court press but had trouble applying and Cloverdale held an early 5-2 lead after a Megan Helterbrand-3.

The hosts responded with a pair of threes from Audra Smallwood that allowed the Cadets to take a 14-10 lead into the second period.

Cloverdale had dealt with the Cascade press in the opening frame but struggled in the following quarter as the hosts cranked up the pressure and scored 11 unanswered points.

Langdon noted that the quick burst came at a time where the play of the Clovers dropped off slightly.

"The game itself came down to a small, six minutes stretch where we had a few turnovers and that was the difference," Langdon said. "We didn't want to sag back and try to avoid making mistakes against a pressure team because that's when the mistakes happened."

Trailing 32-18 at halftime, Cloverdale might have let the game fade away from them. Instead, Langdon was impressed with the way the squad continued to attack Cascade.

"Typically, when we've come into games against a team like Cascade, a physical team, we've dreaded it," Langdon said. "We haven't always liked that type of game. We geared our mindset towards this game that we needed to be physical ourselves.

"We were physical with them and it took a toll on Cascade. If we were getting pounded and didn't fight back some, it would have been a long night. We wanted to attack that pressure and at times it paid off for us."

Having given up a 10-3 run to start the third, the Clovers ended with a 10-5 run to close the quarter that frustrated the home side into committing multiple fouls.

Though the Clovers could not cut deeply into the Cascade lead, briefly closing to as close as 10, the hosts were never allowed to settle as Bailee Stevens and Kimmy Winders attacked the basket at every opportunity.

The effort for four quarters may not have garnered Cloverdale a win but Langdon saw very promising signs throughout.

"I thought we glued tonight," Langdon said. "If you have to take a loss, you need to take something from it and I think we can take a lot from this game and apply towards our final stretch of games.

"There were stretches tonight where we held them defensively. Cascade is a very good offensive team and they're hard to guard sometimes. We also got back above 40 points and hit some good shots tonight."

Cloverdale will make the trek to Rockville next Tuesday and Langdon was quick to note that the Rox fared well against common foe South Putnam recently.

"From here on, we can't have any let downs," Langdon said. "We need to treat each game with the same mindset we had tonight because everyone else is going to be hungry for wins like we are.

"Rockville is a team that already beat South Putnam and is a team that has a lot of inside players. If we can play physical like we did tonight, we can put pressure on them.

"There are certain teams we have a better match-up with as long as we stay disciplined. We want to add pressure but we can't hurt ourselves doing so."

Cloverdale (44): Stevens 18, Winders 11, M. Helterbrand 9, Clark 5, Combs 1, Worthington 0, K. Helterbrand 0, Dorsett 0. Total 13-50 FG; 3-10 3-FG; 15-24 FT.
Cascade (57): Stein 20, Smallwood 13, Gaddis 9, M. Smith 4, Walker 4, Stinnett 3, Collier 2, K. Smith 2, Bell 0, Norris 0. Total 21-75 FG; 5-26 3-FG; 10-17 FT.