LINDEN — North Montgomery girls basketball is going through some struggles. Tuesday the Chargers welcomed the Seeger Patriots and fell behind early 8-2 after a quarter. The Chargers would hit their only field goal of the first half to begin the second quarter when Caelyn Carpenter got a jumper to fall at the 6:37 mark of the second quarter. Despite going 1-17 from the field in the first half, the Chargers only trailed Seeger 14-7 at halftime. After cutting the defect to just one at 14-13, Seeger scored the final five to take a 19-13 lead into the fourth. The young Chargers continued to battle and a 6-0 personal run by Piper Ramey along with a Lilly Graham three evened the score at 26-26 with just 52.6 left. A crucial turnover and a Rylea Wetz layup allowed Seeger to ice the game at the free-throw line as the Chargers fell 32-26.
“We got off to a rough start and just couldn’t buy a basket in that first half,” Charger coach Ryan Nuppnau said. “All of our girls out on the court need to have the ‘I want to shoot mentality’. Only making one field goal in the first half was the dagger. We finally got going and were able to get ourselves back in the game, but it’s just another unfortunate example of us not being able to play a full 32-minutes.”
Something else that plagued North Montgomery (8-13) in the loss was their in-ability to keep Seeger off the offensive glass. The Patriots grabbed 32 total rebounds and exactly half of them came on the offensive end with 16.
“That’s just way too many to give up,” Nuppnau added. “There were some possessions where they got more than one we couldn’t finish the possession. It’s something we have to look at and take care of business. It comes down to being stronger and grabbing the basketball.”
Seeger (14-7) was led in scoring by Wetz’s 12 points. As a team they shot 12-49 (24%) from the floor. They made 1-10 (10%) of their threes while going 7-15 (46%) from the free-throw line and turned the ball over just nine times.
North Montgomery was led in by junior Piper Ramey’s 14 points and 12 rebound effort. Sophie Crum came off the Charger bench to have four points while Graham and Carpenter both added three. Macee Norman was held to just two points which both came from the foul line. For the game North shot 10-40 (25%) while also making just 1-10 (10%) of their threes. The Chargers were 5-7 (71%) from the foul line while grabbing 44 rebounds and turning the ball over 17 times.
There were two players for the Chargers that Nuppnau made sure to give compliments to for how they’re beginning to give the team valuable minutes off the bench.
“Both Sophie Crum and Lilly Graham are really starting to find their footing with us,” Nuppnau said of freshman duo. “Lilly is a great shooter and has been able to knock down some shots for us while Sophie made the adjustment that the whole team needed to make at halftime. She got some key offensive rebounds and put-backs for us. It’s nice to have two girls like that who you can bring off the bench. If we can play 8-9 girls now that gives us more depth which is huge moving forward.”
North will return to action Friday with a trip to Lebanon for G/B double-header. The girls will get things going at 6 p.m. with the boys to follow.
