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Lady Cougars get by Eels
EMINENCE-- The North Putnam girls' basketball team traveled to Eminence Tuesday evening and came together for its fifth win of the season, fefeating the Eels, 45-13.
An Eminence team (3-16), who only has three wins with two being against Fall Creek Academy (0-19) and the other against Providence Cristo Rey, gave the Cougars a run for their money early on.
Eminence called a timeout being down 13-3 in the second quarter, but the Eels had forced the Cougars to turn the ball over six times and the Cougars (5-15 1-2 WCC) had already missed 19 shots.
Offensive rebounds came to the rescue for the Cougars and so did senior Ricki Evans. She had five of her team's 13 first-half offensive rebounds and nine of the team's 23 for the game. Doing so helped her to six points off the bench.
"This is a game where we had a little bit of a height advantage," Coach Jim Spencer said. "It's not very often where we get that with all five players across the board. We've talked about getting on the boards and just making good decisions. I thought we made a lot of good shots tonight."
It was not until the second half that the Cougars started pulling away, but not before they overcame some troubles.
"We used some of the back door a bit," Spencer said. "We got some good shots."
Spencer took his starters out early in the third quarter with a 21-3 lead, but in less than two minutes the Eels got their biggest spurt. They went on a 7-0 run and the lead was cut to 11. Lone senior Shania Wood had five of those points off a three-pointer and a layup that occurred because of a steal. Freshman Jadie Smile also had a steal that she took to the hoop.
With that, Spencer put his starters back in and the duo of junior Taylor Nauert and sophomore Emilee Henninger got hot.
The Cougars ended the third on an 8-0 run because of Nauert finding Henninger on a back door for a lay-up and on the ensuing Eel possession Henninger stole the ball at mid court and took it to the basket as time expired. Nauert had eight points with four coming in the second.
"We did a good job of reading what was presented to us," Spencer said. "We beat them with the back door a little bit and beat them down the floor a little bit. We got a lot of good shots and we were able to rebound a lot of shots. Things just went our way."
Henninger has come on strong in the past few games. She continued with 10 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals on Tuesday.
Fouling was minimal in the game and a total of six free throws were shot between the two teams. The Cougars only shot two. Evans put back up an offensive rebound and was fouled. She made both. This came in the fourth quarter with 6:46 left in the contest.
"North Putnam had good contributions off the bench. The Cougars scored a season-high 16 bench points. Evans led the bench players, but sophomore Lyndi Parent and junior Adri Millican each had four.
The Cougars have won three out of the last four games, but only shot 21 of 61 from the field against the Eels. Friday night against South Putnam they will have to shoot a better percentage if they want to win. South Putnam has won eight games since beating the Cougars in the consolation round of the Putnam County Tournament. The game will begin a 6 p.m.
"If you're not going to offensive rebound on those many misses, you're going to put yourself in a bad situation," Spencer said. "Tonight we just didn't make them. We didn't take bad shots we just missed them. Going forward we need to make a few more or continue to offensive rebound. "
At Eminence
North Putnam 7 10 12 16--45
Eminence 2 1 7 3--13
Scoring
North Putnam (21-61 2-2 45): Henninger 5-7 0-0 10, Nauert 4-10 0-0 8, Evans 2-5 2-2 6, Ma. Smith 2-4 0-0 5, Millican 2-11 0-0 4, Mindiola 2-4 0-0 4, Parent 2-2 0-0 4,Clodfelter 1-6 0-0 2, Mo. Smith 1-8 0-0 2, B. Smith 0-3 0-0 0.
Eminence (5-36 2-4 13):Wood 2-11 2-4 7, Smile 2-5 0-0 4, Hall 1-8 0-0 2, Davis 0-1 0-0 0,Morgan 0-9 0-0 0, Owens 0-1 0-0 0, Teters 0-1 0-0 0.
Rebounds
North Putnam (23 OFF 39 TOT):Evans 9, Millican 7, Mindiola 6, Henninger 4, Parent 4, B. Smith 3, Clodfelter 2, Ma. Smith 2, Nauert 1, Mo. Smith 1.
Eminence (7 OFF 19 TOT): Wood 6, Morgan 4, Smile 3,Hall 2, Teters 2, Davis 1.