Golden Eagle girls stifle Panthers, 41-27

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

The Golden Eagles’ responded to a Pan­ther chal­lenge down the stretch.

Big Walnut’s fourth-quarter defense, com­bined with timely free throw shoot­ing, stymied a deter­mined Lick­ing Val­ley quin­tet in a 41–27 Golden Eagle non-conference vic­tory Fri­day night in Sunbury.

Bob Scott’s Golden Eagles, win­ning for the sixth time in 8 sea­son starts, took a 29–21 lead into the fourth quar­ter and made it stand up thanks to a defense that shut Lick­ing Val­ley (5–4) out from the field while forc­ing the Pan­thers into 11 turnovers in 16 pos­ses­sions. The vis­i­tors were 0-for-4 from the field in the quarter.

Mean­while, the Big Wal­nut offense got key bas­kets from junior Sara Petty, senior Saman­tha Klinedinst and junior Sky­lar Fleak while con­vert­ing 6 of 9 free throws to outscore the Pan­thers 12–6 over the final 8 min­utes to seal the win.

“With the game on the line, we did a good job main­tain­ing our com­po­sure to get the job done,” Scott said. “I was proud of the way we played down the stretch with the game on the line, espe­cially on defense.”

Big Wal­nut never trailed in the con­test. With the Golden Eagle defense forc­ing 9 Lick­ing Val­ley turnovers in the Pan­thers’ first 13 pos­ses­sions, the hosts held an 8–0 lead with 59 sec­onds left in the open­ing quar­ter. By the inter­mis­sion, Big Wal­nut held a 22–9 lead led by the inside scor­ing of Petty and the out­side shoot­ing of junior Han­nah Sea­well. Petty fin­ished the half with 7 points while Sea­well came off the bench in the sec­ond quar­ter to bury a trey and con­tribute 5 second-quarter points.

After the Golden Eagles stretched their advan­tage to 26–9 on bas­kets by Petty and Fleak in the open­ing two min­utes of the sec­ond half, Lick­ing Val­ley turned up its defen­sive inten­sity. The Pan­thers, sparked by 5-foot-9 junior Cassi Stein and 5–3 sopho­more Kori Caugh­en­baugh, closed the third period with a 9–0 run while forc­ing 6 Big Wal­nut turnovers to close to within 8 of the lead at 29–21 going into the final quarter.

“We started try­ing to force our passes against Lick­ing Val­ley instead of con­trol­ling the tempo and run­ning time off the clock,” Scott said. “That’s an area of our game that we need to get bet­ter … we’re get­ting there but it’s going to take time.”

The Golden Eagles’ turnover woes against an aggres­sive Pan­ther defense con­tin­ued to start the final period. Big Wal­nut turned the ball over on 5 of its first 7 pos­ses­sions, but still man­aged a Petty bas­ket and a pair of free throws by sopho­more Makenna Ham­mond to pen up a 33–21 lead with 7:14 to play.

Fol­low­ing a time­out, Big Wal­nut came back out and put the game away as Klinedinst and Fleak com­bined for a bas­ket and two free throws each while the Golden Eagle defense forced 5 Lick­ing Val­ley turnovers on the Pan­thers’ last 6 possessions.

Petty paced Big Wal­nut with a game-high 14 points, Fleak joined Petty in dou­ble fig­ures with 10 points, The Golden Eagles shot 35.3 per­cent 12-for-34 for the game, adding 16 of 26 free throws (61.5 per­cent). Led by Petty’s 10 and Fleak’s 9 boards, Big Wal­nut claimed a 41–26 edge off the glass. The Golden Eagles totaled with 27 turnovers in 59 pos­ses­sions (45.8 per­cent), at the expense of 14 points lost to the Panthers.

Stein paced Lick­ing Val­ley with 12 points and 4 rebounds. Caugh­en­baugh fol­lowed with 6. The Pan­thers, scor­ing only 8 field goals, shot only 21.1 per­cent (8-for-38) from the field. They were 10-for-16 (62.5 per­cent) at the line. Lick­ing Val­ley turned the ball over 25 times in 61 pos­ses­sions (40.98 per­cent), los­ing 20 points on its turnovers.

CAMBRIDGE at BIG WALNUT — The Golden Eagles’ Sat­ur­day afternoon’s non-conference var­sity game with the vis­it­ing Bob­cats was post­poned due to weather. The game will be resched­uled at a later date.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.