VEEDERSBURG — Fountain Central cleaned up some first half miscues and cruised to a 52-39 non-conference win over Frontier in girls’ basketball on Wednesday evening.
After 15 first half turnovers, the Mustangs (3-4) only gave it away four times in the second half and outscored the Falcons 31-22.
“I felt like we played in a little bit less of state of panic,” first-year Mustangs coach Jason Good said. “In the first half we were kind of rushing things and we didn’t adjust anything, just for some reason the girls did a better job. Maybe they got a little more confident. This is still a team that tends to get nervous and we’ve got a lot to learn.”
Dakota Borman led all scorers with 11 first half points to give Fountain Central a 21-17 lead at the break, but Frontier switched defenses to start the third quarter to try and take Borman away with a diamond and one.
They held Borman without a second half field goal, but the Mustangs made them pay in other ways.
Jerzi Hershberger scored the first eight points of the second half for Fountain Central, including a pair of 3-pointers to make it 29-22 with 3:28 left in the third period. The Mustangs led 34-25 after 24 minutes.
Nola Walls and Larissa Bowers each added second half triples as the Mustangs connected of 6-of-15 3-point field goals for the game.
“Switching to the diamond and one actually took a lot of pressure off my girls, because every pass was easy, it was just hard to get Dakota the ball,” Good said.
Hershberger led all scorers with a season-high 17 points, while Borman added 16, Bowers eight, and Gracie Foxworthy six.
Fountain Central put the game away with an 11-of-16 effort from the free throw line in the fourth quarter.
Good can see his team improving when the game is on the line in the final minutes.
“I thought in the end when they were trying to make a run,” he said. “Like last week against North Vermillion we kind of panicked and played right into their hands and we talked a little bit about that and I thought Jerzi and Dakota did a pretty good job of keeping us calm and knowing when to attack and when to just take care of the ball.”
Emma Blissett led all scorers with 26 points for Frontier, as the Falcons put up 29 3-point shots, but made just four for a 13.9% clip.
“I thought Kacy (Kirkpatrick) was great for us in the zone, being active and getting out to their shooter,” Good said. “To be honest early in the season that’s something we haven’t done very well. And I knew coming in they were going to shoot threes more than most people we’ve played.”
Fountain Central travels to Attica on Friday for a Wabash River Conference matchup starting at 6 p.m.
