VEEDERSBURG - Fountain Central’s girls hoops team played even with a very good Seeger squad for the first 12 minutes, but the Patriots offense was more than the Mustangs could handle in a 55-34 Seeger WRC win.
“They are where we want to be,” FC coach Sam Karr said after the game, noting especially the offensive differences between his team and Seeger, who move to 8-1 with the win and 3-0 in the WRC, while his Mustangs fall to 5-7 overall and 0-1 in the league.
“We are improving with every practice and every game,” Karr noted, “but Seeger is really solid, and their switching defense trapped us. We attacked the basket when we had the chance, but we have turnovers in spurts, and that gave them some easy baskets.”
The Patriots did take advantage of 26 FC turnovers, and scored 25 points off of those miscues.
“We got some points in transition,” first-year Seeger coach Chad Wetz said. “All five of our starters can score, so that is an advantage for us and we manufactured some shots, but moving forward, we need to shoot the ball better. Fountain Central is a good, young, scrappy team, and we knew this was going to be a tough defensive game. We had a nice bounce-back tonight after a tough loss to Benton Central last week.”
The Mustangs scored five of the last seven points of the first quarter to knot things at 11 at the end of one.
They trailed 15-14 a couple minutes into the second period when the Patriots opened the scoring floodgates with the last nine of the half.
A double-digit deficit got worse early in the fourth quarter when the visitors scored eight in a row, and there wasn’t enough offense in the Mustangs arsenal to make up the difference.
Leading the scoring for FC was Hannah Prickett, as the sophomore dropped 19.
“She (Prickett) has a really quick release,” Wetz noted. “Her game speed is very good, and we will have to be more aware of her down the road.”
“She has no fear,” her own coach said. “She plays with that reckless abandon sometimes,” said Karr. “She is learning just like the rest of us.”
The Mustangs were 13-of-33 from the field, 6-of-16 from long range and only 2-of-6 from the line. They had 26 rebounds, led by Kacey Kirkpatrick’s eight.
The Patriots were led in scoring by Aubrey Cole, as the senior was right at her season average of 22 points. Paige Laffoon added 13, as the senior was 5-of-5 from the field.
Overall, Seeger was 21-of-41 from the field, 3-of-10 from deep and spent a lot more time at the line, going 10-of-19. Addison Shrader led the Patriots 27 rebounds with five and they had 14 turnovers.
“We had a week of really good practice,” Karr said, “and it showed tonight. Defensively, we can cause problems for teams, but we still have some fixes to do on the offense. Seeger will make you realize where you are - they will expose you, and that’s why it is good to play a good team like they are. We had a tough night of delivering the ball in our offense, and that is our next item.”
Both teams are back in WRC action Thursday, as the Patriots travel to Riverton Parke, while the Mustangs have a home matchup with North Vermillion.
Seeger, with an earlier win over Crawfordsville, also has both Southmont and North Montgomery on the January schedule.
