North Putnam girls struggle early in the season

North Putnam's Jazzmine Laffin steals the ball and tries to go in for a layup. (Banner Graphic/JOHNATHON GOODE)

DANVILLE--North Putnam girls' basketball team only wanted to improve after Tuesday night's loss to Crawfordsville but found an even tougher opponent in Danville. The girls' basketball team lost to the Danville Warriors, 48-10.

Danville (1-0 0-0 SAG) hosted its first game of the season Thursday night and senior Morgan Bear led the way with 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting and 1-of-2 from the foul line. Juniors Hannah Newby and Maleha Motter followed not far behind with nine and eight points.

For the second game in a row North Putnam could not find the basket in the first quarter and were also shutout in the third quarter. The only two first half points were scored by junior center Adri Millican.

Taylor Nauert drives along the sideline hoping to find someone inside. (Banner Graphic/JOHNATHON GOODE)

"We just got to work to get batter," coach Jim Spencer said of his team. "We will evaluate ourselves and just try to get better. We will keep working on the things we need to work on in practice and that's just what we're going to do."

North Putnam (0-2 0-0 WCC) had problems keeping control of the ball for the second consecutive game. After giving up 31 turnovers against the Athenians on Tuesday they recorded 33 against the Warriors.

"We had the turnovers tonight, but we also didn't shoot it too well," Spencer said. "We couldn't get points. Sometimes you get into a game where you can't score and that just happens. There is not much you can do about that."

Despite a miserable first three quarters, the Cougars played right along with Danville in the fourth quarter. They put up eight points, four coming from senior Kayla Clodfelter.

"I thought we improved a little as the game went on," Spencer said. "We're still dealing with some inconsistency. We do some good things in a row and then erase that with some bad things."

The Cougars knew Danville would be a good team coming in and their schedule does not get any easier. They play Covington on Nov. 18 and then play a dominant Greencastle team in the first round of the county tournament on Friday, November 21.

At Danville High School

North Putnam 0 2 0 8--10

Danville 16 10 12 10--48

Scoring:

North Putnam (M-ATT): Clodfelter 2-2 0-0 4, Millican 2-5 0-2 4, Evans 0-4 1-3 1, Nauert 0-11 1-2 1, Henninger 0-4 0-1 0, Laffin 0-2 0-0 0, Parent 0-1 0-0 0, Smith 0-1 0-0 0.

D2, Sims 1-2 0-0 2, Collier 0-2 0-0 0, Mitchell 0-2 0-0 0.

Rebounding:

North Putnam (OFF-TOT): Henninger 4-7, Nauert 1-6, Smith 1-4,Laffin 0-3, Clodfelter 0-2, Evans 2-2, Millican 1-2, Parent 1-1.

Danville: Bear 2-6, Motter 0-4, Newby 2-4, Sims 0-4, Kiefer 1-3, Collins 0-1, Mitchell 1-0