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Cloverdale falls to Panthers, 51-39
CLOVERDALE — Cloverdale’s young girls’ basketball team led visiting Riverton Parke after three periods on Friday night, but the Panthers used a huge final period from senior standout Tayler Vauters to escape with a 51-39 victory.
Tori Combs had five of her team-high 11 points as the Clovers led 12-10 at the first stop.
Vauters had six second-quarter points as the Panthers managed to take the lead at 21-18 at intermission.
The Clovers had their best run of the night to open the third period, scoring 11 straight points to take the largest lead of the night at 29-21.
After routing an outmanned Turkey Run team 81-18 on Tuesday in a game that was never in doubt, the Clovers found themselves in a new situation for the young season.
“For us to take a lead like that in the third quarter was a great ‘growing moment’ for this team,” Cloverdale coach Matthew Langdon said. “That was really big for us. Then, we had never been in a situation where we’re trying to hold the lead, and we started to settle for things.”
Combs had a basket to start the third-quarter explosion, while Abby Walker added a 3-pointer and a free throw, freshman Lakkain Price had a basket and fellow freshman Hailey Thomas hit a 3-pointer.
At that point, Riverton Parke made adjustments in its defense.
“They started packing it in [their 2-3 zone] on us, and you’d like to drive, but when they’re doing that you have to hit a couple of shots to pull the zone out,” Langdon said. “We just didn’t do that. We hit some shots occasionally, but we never made them pay for packing it back in the lane on us.”
The Clovers had been using a combination of drives to the basket, putbacks by Combs and outside shots through that point in the game — but things just didn’t continue to click.
“The times we did drive, we couldn’t finish,” Langdon said. “In the run in the third quarter, we moved the ball well and got it inside-out. We need to do that all the time.”
Vauters, a senior guard who will sign this week with Division II Purdue-Northwest, had been held to 10 points in the first half.
She only had a pair of free throws in the third period, but the Panthers used the hot shooting of sophomore reserve Grace Pharr to cut the deficit to two.
Pharr hit a pair of threes, sandwiched around the Vauters free throws, an added a free throw of her own with 34.6 seconds left in the period. Cloverdale got only a trey from Thomas in the final 3:20 of the third period, and managed just seven points in the final quarter.
Vauters scored nine of her game-high 21 points in the final period on six free throws and a trey.
Riverton Parke opened the period on a 12-3 run, with a Walker trey the only Clover points, and dominated the final period from the line.
“We fouled too much and gave up 20 points from the free throw line,” Langdon noted. “When you give away that many points at the free throw line, you’re not going to win too many games like that.”
Vauters did not shoot well in the first half, but used her experience to better pick her spots in the second half.
“We wanted to keep Vauters under her average [19.7 last year], and thought we had the speed to do that. She drove too much and that opened up things too much.”
Cloverdale hit just 3 of 20 shots from the field in the final period, including 1 of 7 from 3-point range, while the Panthers were 4 of 9 from the field and nailed 11 of 14 free throws in the final eight minutes.
Pharr had 17 points to give Vauters double-figure support and senior center Kierston Burdine added eight points and 11 rebounds for the winners.
Walker had 10 points to give double-figure support to Combs, who had a game-high 17 rebounds. Thomas added eight and Sammie Shrum had six points and nine rebounds for the Clovers.
Vauters began driving to the basket more than shooting from outside, and Langdon thought the Clovers did not defend her drives well — but considers the game a learning experience.
“This game will improve our trapping all season long,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll see a player who can split traps that well. It will really help us moving forward.”
Langdon has a lot of respect for Panther coach Josh Douglass and his program.
“We got a good effort all the way around,” he said. “They are a program that has won for eight straight years [while the Clovers have had eight straight losing seasons]. They have a good coach and a good program, and we’re up and coming. It was neat to see us go toe-to-toe with them.”
The Clovers take to the road next week to battle North Central and Shakamak.
RIVERTON PARKE (51) — Vauters 5-23 10-11 21, Higginbotham 0-0 2-4 2, Fellows 0-0 1-2 1, Burdine 2-5 4-4 8, Clapp 1-7 0-0 2, Pharr 5-6 3-4 17, Schermann 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 13-45 FG, 20-27 FT, 51 TP
CLOVERDALE (39) — Combs 4-11 3-4 11, Shrum 3-14 0-0 6, Thomas 3-12 0-3 8, Walker 3-12 1-2 10, Helterbrand 0-4 0-0 0, Shoemaker 1-1 0-0 2, Meek 0-1 0-0 0, Rightmyer 0-1 0-0 0, Price 1-1 0-0 2.
Riverton Parke 10 11 9 21 — 51
Cloverdale 12 6 14 7 — 39
3-point shooting — RP 5-11 (Vauters 1-7, Pharr 4-4), Cloverdale 5-18 (Walker 3-11, Helterbrand 0-1, Meek 0-1). Rebounds — Cloverdale 35 (Combs 17), RP 33 (Burdine 11). FG Pct. — RP .288, Cloverdale .263. Turnovers — Cloverdale 17, RP 15.
JV game — Riverton Parke 48, Cloverdale 46 (Lakkain Price 16, Kiley Shedron 10) in OT.
Next game — Cloverdale (1-1) plays at North Central on Tuesday.