Lauren Null was one of the few bright spots for Worth County against Albany last Wednesday night as she posted a career-high 10 points in a losing effort against the Warriors. The Tigers lost 40-23 in the second round of the Albany tournament as they were eliminated for the second year in a row. Depending on how you look at it, the Tigers either took a step forward or a step back. Last year, Worth County fought North Nodaway to the bitter end before being ousted; however, they gave up the first 11 points in the game against Albany and never made it closer than seven the rest of the way. On the other hand, Worth County lost by nearly 30 to the Warriors last year; the fact that they played them to within 17 suggests that they made some strides despite the loss.
Worth County dropped an embarrassing 72-8 decision to Jefferson to open the tournament; "We couldn't handle Jefferson's half-court pressure," said Coach April Healy. It seems that everyone is having trouble handing Jefferson's stifiling defense -- Stanberry, one of the teams to beat this year, only managed to run their half-court offense once against the Eagles in the last 12 minutes in losing to Jefferson in the championship round by 11.
The Albany game started out as a slopfest -- both teams were having trouble solving the other's defensive scheme. But Worth County had much the worse problems as they seemingly forgot that they were no longer playing Jefferson. Consequently, they were dribbling without a purpose and not squaring up before shooting. Consequently, they did not score their first points of the game until the 54 second mark of the first period, when Ashley Reynolds posted up a defender and drew a foul to make it 11-2. Free throws by Lauren Null after a good take to the basket with 4:10 left in the second made it 13-6 and Worth County countered Erin Teel's inside shot with a fast break from Kiley Reynolds as Ashley's little sister caught the Warriors napping and took it in for a score with 2:13 left to make it 15-8. "Brooke Gilland and Kiley Reynolds played hard on defense," said Coach Healy. "Kiley really gave us some quality minutes off the bench."
Trailing 17-8 at the break, Worth County started moving the ball better on offense, getting some good ball reversals. But the shots were not falling and the nature of the game is when one thing gets corrected, another problem rears its head. The Tigers left Megan Poppa all alone on defense from 8-12 feet out in the third quarter and she connected on three straight baskets to push Albany's lead to 25-10. Brooke Gilland, who rebounded well in the quarter, grabbed a putback to make it 25-12, but then Albany responded by scoring the last six points to make it 31-12. Worth County tried unsuccessfully to put on a press to try to get the ball back and Albany grabbed their biggest lead of the game at 35-12 at the 6:37 mark of the fourth quarter.
It was then that Lauren Null got going to notch a career high for her. She scored off a backdoor layup, a shot from the right side, and a drive to the basket as the Tigers finally started running their plays and the shots started falling for them. Null then got into double digits with 50 seconds left with a putback to account for the final score as the Tigers had their most productive offensive output of the year so far and gave themselves something to build on in winnable games against North Nodaway and West Nodaway this week.
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