Arrows First Win at Holiday Tournament.
J. C. Tilton
It is no secret that the Shawnee Arrows have had a tough season. There are no seniors on the team and they had not won a game coming into their holiday tournament. Trail has not fared well either. After graduating last seasons large seniors class, it left no one with significant varsity time on the Trail team. So both teams are fielding largely inexperienced players. After getting spanked in the opening rounds, which team would recover best and claim a victory?
Shawnee opened with early momentum and leaped out front. But Trail recovered and at the end of the first quarter they had a narrow 12-11 lead. Trail had opened with man to man but quickly went to a zone. Shawnee pressed some and then fell back into a zone. The press was generating turnovers and Shawnee was able to capitalize. The second quarter was also even although at the end of the quarter Shawnee was the one on top 19-17. Notably Shawnee postman Steven Hale drew his third foul and had to spend time on the bench. Shawnee does not have much height to start with and this put them at a disadvantage.
In the third quarter, Shawnee finally got the game to the tempo they wanted. The press had Trail running the court and throwing up hurried shots, or making poor decisions and turning the ball over. Shawnee went on a 13-0 run and ended the quarter with the lead. They scored 19 points in the quarter while Trail could only muster 8. In an otherwise close game this critical breakdown by Trail gave Shawnee the advantage they needed.
In the final quarter, Shawnee slowed down and sat on their lead. Trail did try a press of their own late in the game, but to no avail. They could only score 7 points. And although Shawnee only scored 8 themselves, the damage had been done and the Arrows would win their first game of the season 46-32 to an ovation from the Shawnee faithful.
Shawnee Head Coach Ed Davis commented after the game, “I thought the kids played hard, we really got after it on defense. We made some mistakes, but overall it was pretty positive. They did a great job rebounding - that was the difference.” When asked about their second half run he answered, “We pressed and got them at a pace we wanted. We thought we were a little quicker than they were. Our defense was really strong. At halftime, I told them to build on what we had done and they did. Logan Cottingim really stepped up, he made some three's for us and got some rebounds. Will Messer had a good game for us. It was great to get our first win in front of the home crowd.”
Trail coach Ron Bauman was subdued after the loss, “There always seems to be one quarter that kills us, and we get ourselves in a hole and we can't get up. They have to play all 32 minutes.” He added, “ None of them have any varsity experience from last year.”
Scoring for Trail: Bane 2, Brower 8, Eales 7, Holsapple 2, Nutt 13. Scoring for Shawnee: Alcorn 3, Byrd 5, Cottingim 16, Hale 6, Messer 12, Trent 4. Comments: email: Chris Tilton
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