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Clovers open season with win over Eagles
A young and short-handed South Putnam team battled Cloverdale to a 26-23 game through the first two quarters on Tuesday night, but the veteran Clovers dominated the second half on their way to a 65-44 win in the girls’ basketball season opener for both teams.
With second-leading returning scorer Lexi Vanihel still sidelined by an ankle injury, the Eagles got promising performances from several youngsters getting their most extensive varsity minutes.
That fact was not lost on Eagle coach Brian Gardner, despite his team’s defeat.
“Take away the score of the game, and I felt like we had a lot of positives,” Gardner said. “We had a lot of people step up in their first big varsity action and play well. I thought Cloverdale did a good job of coming out of the gates, and then I thought we answered that.”
The Clovers scored the first six points of the game, as Tori Combs converted a steal into a layup, Hailey Thomas added a free throw and Sammie Shrum hit the first of four 3-pointers on the night.
The Eagles cut the gap to 9-6 on sophomore Macie Bumgardner’s second basket, but Thomas hit a trey and reserve Madison Shoemaker added a basket for a 14-6 Clover lead at the first stop.
A Thomas free throw gave Cloverdale a 25-16 lead with 1:41 left in the second period, but the Eagles got four free throws from Baumgardner and an Alex Steffy trey to help cut the lead to 26-23 at the half.
The Clovers limited South to just 2 of 14 shooting in the third period, while hitting 6 of 11 shots of their own to take a 43-31 lead at the final quarter break.
Combs and Shrum each had six points in that period, while Shoemaker had five.
Baumgardner, who led South with 18 points, had five more points in each of the final two quarters for the Eagles — including a pair of treys.
South scored the first three points of the final period on a Chloe Custis basket and a Bree Mahoney-Sutherland free throw, but as the Eagles began to tire the Clovers picked it up and went on a 17-5 run.
“The biggest problem we had was that we did not rebound the basketball,” Gardner said. “It is really impressive to watch some of our newer players like Macie, Brionna [Egold], Bree, Chloe Custis and all those sophomores who came in and played. They all played hard.”
Cloverdale coach Matthew Langdon gave the Eagles a lot of credit.
“Coach Gardner has to get a lot of credit for getting his girls to play so hard,” he said. “They had great fight in them. In the second half, our girls handled it pretty well.
“We are going to be the ‘hunted’ every game, and our girls had good control and knew what they wanted to do.”
Langdon noted that South Putnam took advantage of any lapses his team had.
“In the past we have played Turkey Run in our opener, and you could get away with some defensive letdowns,” he said. “Each time we did tonight, they made us pay.”
Shrum led Cloverdale with 22 points, while Combs added 17 and Thomas and Shoemaker had eight each.
The Eagles had no one else in double figures besides Bumgardner, but got seven points from Custis and six from Alex Bratcher.
“The best thing for us is that the problems we had are ones we can fix in practice,” Gardner said.
Langdon was happy overall with his team’s play.
“I saw a recipe that I thought a lot of role players did what they needed to do,” he said. “Especially defensively. We need to be locked in on every position. We had a lot of turnovers in the first half.”
CLOVERDALE (65) — Combs 7-15 3-4 17, Shrum 8-19 2-2 22, Thomas 2-4 3-10 8, Wade 1-4 0-0 3, Price 2-6 3-6 7, Lewellen 0-2 0-0 0, Shoemaker 3-4 2-3 8, Byford 0-1 0-0 0, Monnett 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-54 FG, 13-25 FT, 65 Tp
SOUTH PUTNAM (44) — Capps 1-3 0-0 2, Bratcher 2-7 0-1 6, Custis 3-10 0-0 7, Egold 0-6 2-3 2, Crewes 1-7 0-0 2, Mahoney-Sutherland 1-7 2-4 4, Bumgardner 3-7 8-8 18, Steffy 1-1 0-0 3. Totals 13-49 FG, 12-16 FT, 44 TP
| Cloverdale | 14 | 12 | 17 | 22 | — | 65 |
| South Putnam | 6 | 17 | 8 | 13 | — | 44 |
3-point shooting — Cloverdale 6-17 (Shrum 4-10, Thomas 1-4, Wade 1-3), South 6-14 (Bratcher 2-6, Custis 1-3, Egold 0-1, Bumgardner 2-3, Steffy 1-1).
Next game — Cloverdale (1-0) hosts Riverton Parke on Friday. South Putnam (1-0) plays at Parke Heritage on Tuesday.