WASHBURN – The North Greene girls shook off a slow start on Thursday night and ran away from Washburn for a 54-37 road win.
“We had a little bit of a slow start and some miscues early. But once the game settled in we started to get some good looks on offense,” North Greene coach James Buchanan said. “This is a good win for us, especially on the road, against a quality opponent. I was proud that we played hard. We were denying passes and flying around on defense.”
With the win North Greene improves to 19-4, and they earned a win over a potential region-tournament foe in the 17-5 Lady Pirates.
Playing for the first time in a week the Lady Huskies turned in an unremarkable first quarter on offense where they could not figure out how to score on the Lady Pirates’ zone defense.
Fortunately for North Greene its defense was up to the task early and did not allow a field goal in the opening frame. Still the game was tied until the 25-second mark when Ella Head slashed into the paint from the left wing and tapped one off the glass.
The second quarter began with North Greene leading 6-4.
The Lady Huskies began to apply more full-court pressure on defense in the second quarter and as the pace picked up so did the scoring. Natalie Foshie set up Eva Leonard for a three-pointer from the wing to get the scoring started. Then with five minutes left in the first half Leonard struck from deep again to put North Greene in front 14-5.
Leonard hit from beyond the arc four times on Thursday and scored 18 points for North Greene. Her ability to stretch the zone early began to open up the rest of North Greene’s offense.
“Anytime you can hit those threes it opens up other stuff, and Eva is shooting with a lot of confidence. I’m really proud of her, she was big for us tonight,” Buchanan said.
After some good ball rotation Tralyn Southerland added a three-pointer that put the Lady Huskies in front 19-7.
North Greene went to halftime leading 23-10 after Leonard jumped a pass at midcourt and sent her steal ahead to Foshie for a layup.
“People may get tired of hearing me say it, but you can withstand a bad shooting night or all sorts of other things if you are getting stops on defense. You can’t always guarantee what you are going to do on offense, but if you can hold the other team to a low amount points you give yourself a chance every night,” Buchanan said.
In the first half North Greene kept trying get Southerland opportunities in the paint, but Washburn’s quick double teams shut almost all of them down. In the second half that began to change and in the early portion of the third quarter she scored from the block and drew a foul on another opportunity. With the free throws and field goal the lead grew to 27-10.
Southerland pushed the lead to 32-12 with 5:22 left in the period when she stole an inbound pass and quickly moved to the rim.
Southerland finished the night with a game high 19 points, 14 of them came in the second half.
“Part of it was Tralyn finding where to be, and part of it was the others finding her,” Buchanan said. “Washburn did a good job of adjusting their zone to make sure she wasn’t alone. But we tried to spread them out in the second half and that seemed to free her up a little bit.”
Washburn was able to cut the lead down to 32-19 on a peculiar play where Leonard collided with Abigail Epperson while the Lady Pirate was setting a moving screen. On a night with an abundance of confusing whistles Taylie Proffitt was awarded three free throws, even though her teammate took the contact. Proffitt hit all three charity tosses.
In the final minutes of the period Addi Dean knocked down a three-pointer and Foshie made two free throws to put North Greene in front 38-22.
Through three quarters 13 of Washburn’s 22 points came at the foul line.
The fourth quarter was spent with the two teams trading points. The Lady Pirates shrank the margin to 43-29 when Hannah Williams nailed a triple.
Leonard stretched the lead to 53-34 when she drove through traffic and earned three points the hard way. North Greene finished the night leading 54-37.
Williams led Washburn on Thursday with 15 points.
