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Tiger Cubs rout Clovers, win eighth of last 10
Bradley Key has not had a losing record in his seven full seasons as the Greencastle girls’ basketball head coach.
After the first two weeks of the girls’ high school basketball season, that streak looked to be in jeopardy for year eight.
A season-ending injury to a key returning player in Mia Stevens, several sophomores making the sudden transition to varsity basketball and a killer early schedule all contributed to an 0-4 start to the season.
“We had a tough stretch for a while with a young team,” Key said.
The younger Tiger Cubs have matured a lot in a hurry, however, posting an 8-2 record since those long-ago early problems.
“It’s no longer an excuse to be young,” Key said on Tuesday after his team’s most recent win, a dominating 60-37 performance against Cloverdale. “Everybody has played a lot of games now.”
The Tiger Cubs started quickly and never let up on Tuesday, scoring the first five points of the game and posting leads of 9-2 and 13-4 on their way to a 15-7 advantage at the first stop. Greencastle got points from five different players in the opening period, the first two from senior Gracie Smith and the rest from an assortment of sophomores including Claire Gillen, Bailey Shuee, Jalyn Duff and Seelye Stoffregen.
The sophomore quartet scored all of the team’s 15 second-quarter points, as Stoffregen hit a pair of treys and Gillen added a pair of baskets to pace the Tiger Cubs to a 30-15 halftime lead.
Cloverdale coach Matthew Langdon has seen this story before, and doesn’t really like the repeat versions.
“We struggled in the first three minutes in three of the last four games, and you look up and we’re down 8-0 despite getting what we wanted,” he said. “We looked a little tight in the first few minutes. That’s something we need to work on. We are getting to that point where our young players are no longer freshmen or sophomores.”
The Clovers had 15 first-half turnovers and hit just 6 of 33 shots — two ingredients for a lethal concoction in any laboratory.
“We have to fix our turnovers,” Langdon said. “They have haunted us all year, and have kept the other team in it even during wins. We have been running in the 20 range for turnovers, and we have to cut that down.”
Langdon wants his team to value every possession, and have better recognition of when certain shots or passes are either good or bad depending upon the number of defenders present.
“They hear ‘go out, be aggressive, push the ball’, but you have to see each possession differently,” he said.
Freshman Sammie Shrum took it upon herself to keep the Clovers in the game, scoring five points in the first three minutes of the second half sandwiched around a basket by fellow freshman Arianna McCracken as the Clovers trailed just 35-22 with 5:02 left in the period.
Greencastle then took off on a 9-0 run with a trey from Shuee followed by a basket and a free throw from senior Nailah Ray and capped off by another Stoffregen basket.
Cloverdale’s Tori Combs then scored three points on a free throw and a basket, but Smith countered with three similar points of her own for a 46-25 Greencastle lead at the final stop. The Clover never got closer than 20 points the rest of the way.
Gillen and Shuee led Greencastle with 13 points each, while Stoffregen added 12 points.
“It was a big game for us,” Key said. “Cloverdale has gotten tremendously better over the last couple of years.
“We had to stay focused, and it was tough during finals week,” he added. “The girls were stressed out about that, and we had sick girls (which everyone has at this point). I thought we did a good job of keeping focus and running up and down the court.”
Key noted that balanced scoring has been an important factor in his team’s recent renaissance, as he has had three or four double-figure scorers in many recent games.
“Rose White had a great game for us defensively,” he added. “Something that doesn’t always show up in the box score is that she makes it so hard for people to pass around her.
“Bailey and Seelye are just athletic kids who play super hard,” Key said. “They have learned so much about basketball in the first two months of the season.”
Key noted that Combs is a “great player, one of the best in the area” and he thought his team defended her well.
“Our bigs played really well,” he said. “Gracie Smith is just everywhere defensively, and she had a great game also.”
Another player who didn’t accumulate huge statistical numbers is Duff, Key’s improving point guard.
“Jalyn is a special player,” he said. “She can do a lot of great things, and she sees the court as well as any player I’ve ever coached. She’s starting to feel more comfortable.”
The Clovers will play on Tuesday in a four-team tournament at Monrovia.
Langdon thinks his team’s desire to improve will result in its problems getting solved.
“They can take me getting on them, and are always ready to practice the next day,” he said. “It’s going to happen.”
Combs and Shrum led Cloverdale with 12 points each.
The Tiger Cubs are now idle until a Jan. 4 game at powerful Terre Haute South, which will be followed two days later by a huge matchup at Northview against the other co-leader of the Western Indiana Conference’s West Division.
“I am really happy with where we are right now,” Key said.
CLOVERDALE (37) — Combs 5-19 2-4 12, Shrum 4-15 3-4 12, Thomas 0-9 0-0 0, Helterbrand 3-7 0-0 6, McCracken 1-3 1-2 3, Price 0-1 0-0 0, Meek 1-4 0-0 2, Shoemaker 1-1 0-0 2, Simpson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-57 FG, 6-12 FT, 37 TP
GREENCASTLE (60) — Gillen 6-11 1-2 13, Smith 3-6 1-3 7, Duff 1-2 2-2 4, White 2-4 0-0 4, Shuee 5-9 1-2 13, Ray 1-6 2-4 4, Stoffregen 5-6 0-0 12, Nally 1-2 0-0 3, Robinson 0-0 0-1 0. Stevens 0-1 0-0 0, Weliever 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-47 FG, 7-14 FT, 60 TP
Cloverdale 7 8 10 12 — 37
Greencastle 15 15 16 14 — 60
3-point shooting — Cloverdale 1-8 (Shrum 1-4, Thomas 0-1, McCracken 0-1, Meek 0-2), Greencastle 5-9 (Shuee 2-4, Stoffregen 2-3, Nally 1-1).
Next game — Greencastle (8-6) plays at Terre Haute South on Jan. 4. Cloverdale (8-5) plays Monrovia at noon on Tuesday in the Monrovia Tournament.
• Riverton Parke 59, North Putnam 13 — At Roachdale, the Panthers got off to a 17-2 lead after one quarter on Tuesday and went on to an easy win.
Riverton Parke led 32-7 at halftime and 50-13 after three periods.
Tayler Vauters led Riverton Parke with a triple-double, scoring 30 points, getting 11 rebounds and passing out 10 assists.
Emilee Henninger led NP with eight points.
RIVERTON PARKE (59) — K.Burdine 2 0-1 4, Sharps 0 0-0 0, Clapp 0 2-4 2, Vauters 12 1-1 30, Pharr 1 0-0 2, Fellows 1 0-0 3, Higginbotham 5 1-1 12, Schermann 3 0-0 6, J.Burdine 0 0-0 0. Totals 24 FG, 4-7 FT, 59 TP.
NORTH PUTNAM (13) — Duncan 0 0-0 0, Sims 2 0-0 4, Runnels 0 0-0 0, Young 0 1-2 1, Osburn 0 0-2 0, Lyons 0 0-0 0, Day 0 0-2 0, Simmerman 0 0-0 0, O’Neal 0 0-0 0, Henninger 4 0-0 8, Tennis 0 0-0 0, Sawyer 0 0-0 0, Spencer 0 0-0 0. Totals 6 FG, 1-6 FT, 13 TP
Riverton Parke 17 15 18 9 — 59
North Putnam 2 5 6 0 — 13
3-point goals — Vauters 5, Fellows, Higginbotham.
Next game — North Putnam (0-12) plays Speedway at 10 a.m. on Thursday in the Speedway Tournament. Riverton Parke is now 10-2.