South Dominates North
J. C. Tilton
It has been a frustrating season for North and the team hoped to get some redemption with their rematch against rival Twin Valley South. Unfortunately the game mirrored their first meeting at the Shawnee Holiday tournament. North played with South for the first quarter and then could not keep pace.
The game started with an administrative technical against North. Then South started play with an 8-0 run. A rough start for the Panthers from Lewisburg. However the team gathered their composure about midway thru the quarter and ended the period with a 9-2 run of the their own to close the quarter down by three 14-11.
North would close to within 2 points of TVS early in the next quarter, but that would be as close as they would get. Steve Summers got a hot hand and scored 12 points in a row for South to break the game open. Meanwhile the South defense stymied any attempt by North for a rally, they forced numerous turnovers. At the end of the first half South sat down with a 39-21 lead.
North did manage a rally at the end of the third quarter to pull within 13. But Clint Spitler and Ryan Innis closed the quarter with a trey apiece to extend the South lead. North began the 4th quarter with a three point goal from freshman Brandon McAdams and North scored the next two baskets to pull within 12 points this time. But South dashed any hopes of a comeback stifling the North offense and feeding the ball to post player JT Stone who did the bulk of the South scoring in this quarter to close out the game with a 73-54 win.
Coach Augspurger of TVS was asked for comment, “We tried to do some new things this game and I was disappointed with the outcome. We tried to push the ball and when we did, we didn't get back and play defense. We started doing this trading basket thing and gave them too many good looks. We tried a couple of different defenses and it didn't matter, we still gave them good looks. On the other hand, we found our hot shooters very well - Steve Summers in the first half, JT Stone got going in the second half. That's something we haven't always done a good job of, so I was happy with that.”
Next he was asked about Steve Summers, “He has the potential for being a very good scorer. Part of it is his asserting himself and realizing what he can do. I've never had a kid I've had to tell more, be a big shooter. He is starting to realize that he has to catch the ball and be ready to shoot.” On JT Stone, “We don't have a lot of games where JT is the biggest guy on the floor. When he slows down and uses his body he can score on anyone. When he gets too quick and rushes stuff, then he struggles. And we looked for him, that was a big key.”
North coach David Woodworth had this to say about the game, “It's the same problem we've had all year. We talk about trying to find our man on defense. We need to know how close we need to guard them. We can't guard them from 4 feet away. By now the understanding of this should have been there. . If we could have limited their three's then we could have been right there. I am looking to make some changes. We've been thru and thru it. We did make that run in the second half, I thought that bringing Brandon McAdams in there may have given us a little spark.”
“We gave South a 8 point run right off the start, the first point of that comes to me for the technical. It's not that South did anything defensively, it's just that we missed some nice looks. This team will not win unless it shoots effectively. I also felt that we lost every loose ball.” Comments email: Chris Tilton
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