advertisement:
By PAUL BEITLER
Sports Editor
With two inexperienced girls’ basketball teams going up against each other Friday night at the Tiger Den in Bluffton, the outcome was up for grabs.
The level of play was sporadic, but the Bluffton Tigers pulled out a 42-41 victory over visiting South Adams.
Emotions were high in the first Allen County Athletic Conference game for the two rivals and that led to a lot of missed shots and turnovers for each side.
“We’ve just have to learn to be a little bit smarter and take care of the ball,” said Bluffton coach Vicki VanMatre. “We’ve got to learn to have confidence in ourselves and look up the floor.”
Bluffton (2-3) and South Adams (1-4) were fighting the same problems throughout the contest — trying to keep keep the aggressive play in check and make baskets.
“How many missed bunnies did we have in the first half?” asked a perplexed VanMatre. “That killed us in the first half — wide-open underneath lay-ups and just point-blank shots. We’ve got to hit those.”
South Adams’ coach Kip Jones also faced a similar problem, as the Starfires missed many offensive rebound attempts under the basket.
Most of that Jones attributed to the youth of his team.
“As we teach the game and as we improve, the emotion will be more towards the good things that are happening. Right now, they want to do what we’re teaching, but they’re just not doing it,” he said. “The key to the game for us was finishing and we just didn’t finish. We got a lot of pretty good shots, but just couldn’t get the ball in the basket.”
The Starfires made just 17 of 70 shots and 5-6 senior Jaci Liechty suffered the most, grabbing 21 rebounds but making just three of 18 shots.
Bluffton took 18 fewer shots, but the Tigers made just 16 of their 52 tries. Junior Skila Betancourt led all scorers with 11 points, while junior Natasha Patterson added nine. Junior Kara Fiechter added eight.
South Adams’ scoring was paced by freshman Tori Smith with 10. Liechty added nine and Tori Kistler seven.
With Liechty crashing the boards, the Starfires won the rebounding battle 47-43. Karen Bollenbacher and Katrina Hawkins each added nine. Patterson led the Tigers with 10, while freshman Gina Eisenhut came off the bench to haul down nine. Betancourt grabbed eight, Fiechter seven and Marci Mettler seven.
From the outset, both teams were aggressive and forcing turnovers. The Tigers made 35 errors and the Starfires 34. That led to a 7-6 lead for Bluffton after the first period and a 20-19 halftime advantage for the Starfires.
South Adams pulled away in the latter stages of the third period, 29-23, but the Tigers battled back to trail 32-29 with one more period to go.
The Tigers opened the last frame with an 8-2 run and led 37-34 with 4:32 to play. But the Starfires answered with five points to go ahead 39-37 with 1:38 to go.
The Tigers could have pulled away down the stretch, but they made just one of eight free throws over the last 1:23.
Baskets by Fiechter and Eisenhut nailed the Tigers’ win, but it was not over until the final seconds as the Starfires had chances because of Bluffton’s missed free throws.
“We talked at that last timeout about shooting lay-ups, not forcing a bad shot, but yet, taking care of the ball,” said VanMatre. “South Adams is a very aggressive team and we panicked tonight. We threw the ball away a lot and just couldn’t get it down the floor. They played hard and didn’t give it to us.”
In the junior varsity contest, Leslee Peeper scored 18 points to lead the Tigers to a 44-20 victory. Danielle Brown added six, Peyton Fugate five, Nicole Lykins four, Gina Eisenhut three, Taylor Dove two, Shayna LaVine two and Darcie Johnson two.
South Adams was led by Alyssa Armenta with nine.
The next action for Bluffton is Tuesday night at Jay County, starting at 6:30 p.m.
sports@news-banner.com
Read this story in our E-Edition, Click Here
Talk about this story in our forums!