Greencastle caps 5-for-5 week with win over Cloverdale

Greencastle's Madi Plew helped the Tiger Cub offense to get going Saturday afternoon, scoring all 10 of her points in the first half to power the hosts to a 15-point lead at halftime en route to a 62-32 win over Cloverdale.

Banner Graphic/TRENT SCOTT

Capping off a long week of girls’ basketball, Greencastle and Cloverdale had short turnarounds from Friday night doubleheaders, meeting in a varsity-only outing Saturday at McAnally Center.

The Tiger Cubs built a comfortable lead by halftime, using 10 steals either side of the halftime break to create plenty of extra scoring opportunities, and downed the Clovers 62-32.

“We wanted to start our offense on the defensive end, get some steals, run-outs, layups and other easy baskets,” Greencastle head coach Doug Greenlee said. “Cloverdale came out playing hard and playing well early on.

“They’re a well-coached team and you can tell they’re getting better all the time, playing with more confidence and we had to extend the pressure a little bit to get some of the turnovers we wanted.”

“We had a game plan that we had to put in very quickly,” Cloverdale head coach James Wade said. “There were some things we wanted to do; some we did and some we didn’t execute well.

“It’s hard to do that with a young squad but effort wise, we really played pretty well. There’s no moral victory in a 30-point loss but there are some stepping stones for us to grow on.”

With leading scorer Gloria Brewer banged up following the win over Northview and struggling initially to get shots to fall, Greencastle (14-4, 7-2 WIC) was boosted by Madi Plew scoring six points in the opening period and leading all scorers at halftime with 10 points.

Andrea Nees briefly gave Cloverdale (1-15, 0-8 WIC) a 3-0 lead following a three-point play but baskets from Hunter and Brewer saw the lead change for good early in the opening quarter.

Hunter made it 11-5 after a score off a steal and finished the quarter with a layup off a no-look feed from Brewer that made it 15-7 after a quarter of play.

Stephanie Morales helped keep an 11-0 run going by adding a putback to open the second period while Plew hit two free throws and Brewer nailed a three to make it 22-7.

Plew and Hunter traded off baskets with Sydney Bernard and Emily Mann down the stretch as the Tiger Cubs led 26-11 at halftime.

“Madi has been coming,” Greenlee said about the junior, who started in place of Morales Saturday. “She’s been gaining confidence and is another offensive weapon for us from 10 feet out to the three-point line.

“She has a nice shooting stroke and I like to see her constant improvement right now. The more confidence she has, the better she is going to be and we need that right now.”

“Plew getting points was in part because of how we were defending, rotating on the second level and it was new,” Wade said about the Tiger Cub center hitting double-digits at the break. “It’s something we hadn’t gotten to a lot this year.

“We talked in the locker room that we were competing for four and five minute stretches and we just have to put that together for 32 minutes.”

The lead would explode in the third quarter as Hunter and Brewer chained several steals together for layups at the other end, the former scoring the first four points of the quarter before the later scored 10-straight points for the hosts to make it 40-15.

Other Greencastle players soon got into the act as Evie Briones, Bailey Brown and Aleeyah Johnson scored late baskets to make it 48-19 heading into the final eight minutes of play.

Though close to bringing the running clock into play, the hosts couldn’t quite get to the 35-point barrier as Mann scored three points, Kiersten Wade hit a three, Aubrey Yoho converted a three-point play and added a putback to keep the Tiger Cubs from shortening the game.

“For five games in six days and coming back after last night (at Northview) we’d be a little sluggish and that’s OK,” Greenlee said. “We fought through it and got the job done.”

Scoring

Cloverdale (12-30 2FG; 1-10 3FG; 5-6 FT) — Bernard 8, Wade 7, Mann 7, Yoho 7, Nees 3

Greencastle (22-46 2FG; 4-17 3FG; 6-15 FT) — Brewer 21, Hunter 16, Plew 10, Briones 6, Doan 3, Johnson 2, Brown 2, Morales 2

Statistics