ROACHDALE — Things didn’t go as planned for Crawfordsville’s girls basketball team in a 55-28 loss at North Putnam on Wednesday evening.
The Athenians committed 32 turnovers, and shot just 9-of-40 from the field in the loss.
“They (North Putnam) are a pretty good defensive team, but we counted for 32 turnovers in our book,” Crawfordsville coach Tyler Smith said. “It seemed like well over half were unforced. We’ve been talking all week about belief. And in pregame we said ‘you miss a couple shots, the next one is going in and have that confidence. And we just never found it.”
North Putnam (1-1) held a 16-7 lead after a quarter, and pushed the lead to 24-7 with an 8-0 run in the first 90 seconds of the second period, but a six-minute scoring drought by the Cougars opened the door for an Athenians comeback. Unfortunately, the weren’t able to capitalize.
Crawfordsville made just one field goal in the second quarter, while Lauren Kellerman scored five of their six points, and they trailed 26-13 at the break.
The Cougars offense didn’t sputter in the third though, and the Athenians offense didn’t improve either. North Putnam connected on 9-of-17 shots in the period, while the Athenians made just one field goal, turned the ball over 14 times, and were outscored 20-4.
“The team in white wanted it more,” Smith said. “We just talked about that we are a step or a step and a half slow to every facet of the game. We are going to have off shooting nights, but when it comes to being outworked and more toughness on the other side, that’s what’s disappointing, because we know it’s in there, but for whatever reason tonight we were just weak with the ball, and weak in every aspect.”
North Putnam beat Crawfordsville on the boards 38-31, while the Cougars’ Kyla Willis led all scorers with 18. Hannah Sims added nine, while Brie Miller chipped in eight. Kellerman led the Athenians with 10, and Shea Williamson chipped in six, including a pair of 3-pointers.
The Cougars defeated the Athenians 22-21 in the JV game.
Crawfordsville returns to the floor at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at Tri-West for a Sagamore Conference battle.
North Putnam 55, Crawfordsville 28
CHS 7 6 4 11 — 28
NP 16 10 20 9 — 55
CHS (0-2): Olivia Reed 0-3 0-0 0, Megan Simmons 0-2 1-1 2, Kearston Hutchens 0-1 0-0 0, Lauren Kellerman 3-14 3-5 10, Shea Williamson 2-7 0-0 6, Liddy McCarty 1-3 1-2 3, Peyton Sinnet 1-7 0-0 3, Georgia Kincaid 1-2 0-0 2 Winter Helsel 0-0 0-1 0, Lauren Hale 1-1 0-0 2; Totals 9-40 5-9 28.
NP (1-1): Dana Tennis 1-4 0-0 3, Hannah Sims 4-8 0-0 9, Reghan Christy 0-1 0-0 0, Baylee Osburn 2-5 0-0 4, Marin Davies 1-3 2-2 4, Clarissa Gibson 2-6 2-4 6, Kyla Willis 8-12 2-6 18, Bradi Gierke -0 0-0 0, Brie Miller 4-9 0-0 8, Annabelle Gross 1-1 1-2 3, Saydee Proctor 0-3 0-0 0; Totals 23-54 7-14 55.
3-Point Shooting: CHS 4-16 (Williamson 2, Kellerman, Sinnet), NP 2-5 (Tennis, Sims).
Rebounds: CHS 31 NP 38
Turnovers: CHS 32, NP 22
