Cold-shooting BW girls fall to New Albany, 45-27

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

The Golden Eagles sim­ply could not buy a basket …

New Albany took advan­tage of Big Walnut’s cold shoot­ing to score a 45–27 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory Fri­day night in Sunbury.

Coach Jeff Blunt’s vis­it­ing Eagles, con­vert­ing 8 of its first 18 shots, includ­ing three of its first four three-point attempts, jumped out to a 12-point, 23–11 lead on senior for­ward Emily Rolwing’s rebound bas­ket with 4:14 remain­ing in the open­ing half. The Golden Eagles were never closer than 10 points of the lead the rest of the night in going down to the 18-point setback.

“We could not make a bas­ket. We were mov­ing the ball and get­ting good looks, we could not get our shots to fall,” Big Wal­nut head coach Bob Scott said after watch­ing his club drop to 6–3 on the sea­son and to 3–3 in the OCC Cap­i­tal. “Our defense also strug­gled early enabling New Albany to get out to a good start and build a lead.”

After the Golden Eagles took a 2–0 lead on a pair of Makenna Ham­mond free throws, New Albany (6–4, 4–2 OCC) put together a 23–9 run behind the out­side shoot­ing of senior Cheyenne Hartley-Carr and the inside play of senior Kya­sia Dul­ing to open up a 23–11 lead. Hartley-Carr, who led the Eagles with 12 points, counted three treys while Dul­ing went inside for a pair of rebound bas­kets to fuel the run.

By the end of the first half, New Albany, despite a chilly 39.1 shoot­ing per­cent (9-for-23), held a 12-point, 27–15 lead thanks to 4-for-7 shoot­ing from beyond the arc. Big Wal­nut, led by senior Emily Chucta who tal­lied 7 of the Golden Eagles points, went into the break shoot­ing 23.5 per­cent (4-for-17) from the field.

The sec­ond half turned into a defen­sive strug­gle with New Albany outscor­ing Big Wal­nut 18–12. The vis­it­ing Eagles con­verted 5 of their 21 final-half shots while the host Golden Eagles con­nected on 4 of their 28 attempts.

“We did a bet­ter job on defense in the sec­ond half, but we failed to take advan­tage because of our poor shoot­ing against an active and aggres­sive New Albany defense,” Scott said. “Our shoot­ing will come around, but it’s going to take time. It will take a lot of indi­vid­ual effort on the part of our play­ers, but I’m con­fi­dent we will get there as a team.”

For the game, New Albany fin­ished with a 14-for-44, 31.8 shoot­ing per­cent­age, a per­cent­age that included a 6-for-13, 46.2 per­cent­age from 3-point range. Scor­ing behind Hartley-Carr for New Albany were fresh­man Meche’la Cobb and Dul­ing with 7 points apiece and sopho­more Tay­lor Snook with 6 points on a pair of treys. The Eagles were 11-for-16 (68.8 per­cent) at the line.

Big Wal­nut shot 8-for-45, 17.8 per­cent from the field, includ­ing 0-for-6 from behind the arc. Chucta led the Golden Eagles with 10 points. Junior Sara Petty and Ham­mond col­lected 4 points apiece. Big Wal­nut con­verted 11 of 17 free throws (64.7 percent).

The Golden Eagles, led by Petty’s 10 and Chucta’s 6 rebounds, claimed a 43–41 advan­tage off the glass. Senior Han­nah Sci­pio led the Eagles with 7 boards while Dul­ing cleared off 5 missed shots.

BIG WALNUT 66, HORIZON SCIENCE ACADEMY 21 — Defense was the dom­i­nate fac­tor for the Golden Eagles last Sat­ur­day night, lift­ing Bob Scott’s quin­tet to a 45-point non-league win over the host Hawks at The Ohio School for The Deaf.

Big Wal­nut (7–3) started with a 26–3 spree to open the first period and the defense took over from there, allow­ing no more than seven points in any of the final three quar­ters to hand win­less Hori­zon Sci­ence its eighth straight loss.

Junior Sara Petty and sopho­more Makenna Ham­mond led the way for the Golden Eagles, pour­ing in 12 points apiece in the win. Senior Saman­tha Klinedinst fol­lowed with 9 points while junior Han­nah Sea­well and sopho­more Cas­sidy Walaszek con­tributed 8 points apiece.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 9 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.