GREENCASTLE — In the last three games, North Montgomery girls basketball has been on the cusp of wins in each of them. However it’s been one bad stretch of basketball that has cost the Chargers in all three games. Tuesday the Chargers traveled to take on the Greencastle Tiger Cubs and entering the final quarter trailed 28-24. What resulted in the final eight minutes was North being out-scored 14-2 as Greencastle pulled away for a 42-26 win.
The first quarter saw the Tiger Cubs go up 11-8 on a last second three by Madi Plew. Piper Ramey hit a pair of free-throws to make it a one point game at the beginning of the second, but after that Greencastle went on an 8-0 run and went into the locker room holding a seven point advantage at 25-18.
“We just came out flat tonight,” Charger coach Ryan Nuppnau said. “When you don’t shoot it well from the outside teams are going to pack in a 2-3 zone like they did. I thought the refs let both teams play tonight. Piper got beat up and wore down because of some the hits she was taking. Nonetheless when you don’t come ready to play you’re going to have nights like this.”
As Nuppnau alluded to, the offensive struggles showed in the final stats as the Chargers were just 10-46 (22%) from the field in the loss and just 2-14 (14%) from three. They did knock down all four of their foul shots and grabbed 39 rebounds while turning the ball over 18 times. Piper Ramey led the Chargers with eight points while both Lilly Graham and Macee Norman added six. Caelyn Carpenter scored four, while Ella McManomy rounded out the scoring with two.
Greencastle (8-11) saw Ali Dobbs go off for 18 points in the win which is 11 more than her season average. The Chargers keyed in on leading scorer Evie Briones (12.3 ppg) and held her to just six. Bailey Brown chipped in seven for the Tiger Cubs with Plew also scoring six. Sarah Simmerman added three and Aleeyah Johnson scored two. Greencastle shot 15-47 (32%) from the floor in the win and made 5-20 (25%) of their three pointers. They were 7-9 (78%) from the foul line, grabbed 34 rebounds and turned the ball over 13 times.
North falls to 8-11 on the season with the loss and Nuppnau notes how it comes down to a lot of factors other than just scoring the ball to put a complete 32-minutes together.
“Your defense should be perfect, your talking should be perfect,” he said. “Crashing the boards making sharp passes, and our focus should be perfect for those 32 minutes. We know we’re not going to make every shot and are going to have ups and downs offensively, but every other aspect of the game we need to be locked in for. When you don’t score a lot, just a few minutes in a game can kill you. It’s a learning experience for these girls still and I think sometimes they don’t have full confidence and play a little scared when it gets into crunch time. “
The Chargers will be back in action on Friday against Sagamore Conference rival Danville (15-3) in what will be a girl/boy double-header for the Chargers. The girls will get underway beginning at 6 p.m.
