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Lady Arrows vs. Eagles...a tale of two halves.
J. C. Tilton
The Lady Arrows won the first game against Eaton very handily. In the early going the Arrows were in the drivers seat again. They zoomed to a 8-2 lead. Eaton bounced back and closed to within 2 points. Arrow Ali Klapper made her presence known at this time. Shawnee ran a press and Klapper made several steals and converted them to points. When the teams broke for the first quarter, Shawnee lead 16-8. In the second quarter Shawnee called off their press and the pace of the game slowed. Shawnee used a man to man defense, Eaton stuck with their zone for most of the night. It was one of the coldest nights of the winter, and the bus ride over from Eaton must have cooled the Eagle shooters as they had problems finding the basket in the first half. The height advantage of Shawnee prevented them from getting many shots in the paint, so many of their shots were away from the basket. At the intermission, Shawnee had a comfortable 25-15 lead.
Now it was the second half, Shawnee seemed to be in the drivers seat and it seemed that all they had to do was to turn on the cruise control and coast to victory. The Arrows turned up the heat with a vigorous press and got their longest lead of night. Eaton called a time out to regroup and figure out a way to climb out of a 17-30 hole. The time out must of helped, or maybe the Eaton arms had thawed out. The Eagles began to chip away at the Arrow lead. Suddenly it was a 4 point ball game and it was Shawnee's turn to take a time out and cool down the Eagles. The Arrows came out with a zone defense in the half court and resumed the press to try and recapture the momentum. The zone did not work well for the Arrows and they decided to use man to man for the rest of the game.
Entering the 4th quarter the score was 33-28 Arrows. But they could feel the heat from Eaton, and the Eagles were getting ready to crank up the pressure another notch. Eaton changed to a 1-3-1 zone to keep the Arrows off-balance. The two rivals were going after every loose ball and the tension was mounting as the clock worked it's way towards zero. Elbows were exchanged and then a push, Brittany Hayes and an Eaton player were both called for technicals. This seemed to dampen the extra-curricular activities and the teams settled down to play basketball. With less than a minute left Eaton was down by 5 and resorted to fouling to get the ball back. Shawnee's Speessen was not spectacular from the line, but she made 3 trips to the line with 2 shots and hit 50% from the charity stripe. But would shooting 50% from the line be enough? Her last trip was made with 20 seconds left in the game and the made foul shot gave Shawnee a 3 point lead. Eaton was fouled with 1 second left on the clock. The first basket was made to make the score 46-44 Shawnee. On the second shot, they wanted her to intentionally miss so that an Eaton player could grab the rebound, shoot, and hopefully tie the game. Fortunately for Shawnee, the shot went awry and missed the rim - resulting in a Shawnee inbounds, where they tossed the ball down the court to run out the last second and escape with a narrow victory.
Coach Deannah Bair was asked to comment on the game: "I thought the team was sluggish in the second half. We didn't play 4 quarters. We gave up 6 offensive rebounds in a row. Eaton played us well, they shot well from the outside. Hayes had a good game, except for the bad technical, but she is young. Johnson made some shots for us, and Klapper was great off of the bench. She had 4 steals in a row and 3 of those steals were converted to points, she was a defensive standout tonight". Scoring: Gamble 8, Johnson 9, Speessen 11, Kapper 3, Davis 2, Hayes 13. The Shawnee JV's won 38-21, scoring Stubbs 6, Wood 3, Bowling 5, Hershner 2, Studer 2, Cimprich 1, Webster 10, Davis 9. Shawnee's Varsity record is 6-8 (3-3 in SWBL), their next two games are against Edgewood and North.
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