Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Late First Half Run Sinks Tiger Girls

A late first half run sunk the Worth County girls in Summer Jam action Tuesday night as they fell to Tarkio 35-25. Worth County played evenly with a Tarkio squad that has everyone back besides Denise McEnaney for most of the first half, but Tarkio scored twice in the last minute of the half and used a 16-2 run to sink the Tigers.

The game featured five ties in the first half as neither team could take control. Rebecca Moore got a putback while Kacey Smyser cut straight down the lane for another layup. Liz Novak drove right down the lane for another one while Alysa Lyle lobbed one into Claire Andrews. Freshman Kaitlyn Davidson showed some of her speed by jumping a pass and turning it into two free throws. Allie Buffington got behind the Tarkio defense for a layup as the game was tied 12-12 before Tarkio went on their run.

The Indians led by as much as 28-14 as Worth County only scored two points in the first 11 1/2 minutes of the second half before Rebecca Moore showed some guard skills with a drive and floater to break the funk. Claire Andrews got a drive and pullup from the free throw line and Kaitlyn Davidson threw a long outlet pass that led to a Kristen Andrews layup. Rebecca Moore did all she could to get the Tigers back into the game as she followed by grabbing a loose ball and passing it to Claire Andrews for an open look while sprawled on the floor. Rebecca got a steal and then fed Liz Novak and then Liz tipped a pass that Rebecca stole and turned into a free throw that cut it to 32-25 with one minute left. But then Abby McEnaney hit a 3-pointer for the dagger and Worth County could not catch up.

The Tigers have gotten to where they have improved on their athleticism and defense and will get some much needed size as well; Kaitlyn Davidson and Alysa Lyle made their freshman debuts. Another freshman, Sidney Thummel, will provide a lot of guard help while Worth County returns their leading scorer from last year in Liz Novak, now a sophomore. The Tigers will be very young this year with a lot of freshmen and sophomores who will receive active playing time. The challenge for Worth County will be to figure out how to get some scoring, which was one of their main problems last year. They were in many of their games and won three of them; however, their goal for this year will be to improve their scoring. They made some strides towards that Tuesday night as they got balanced scoring as three different players led with six points and seven different players hit the scoring column.

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