Creswell 45
Sweet Home 35
Creswell dominated the Husky girls basketball team in the first quarter 18-2 to seal a 45-35 win Friday night at Creswell.
With 20 turnovers on the first half, the Huskies trailed 31-13 at halftime.
“The first quarter we gave them the game,” Coach Mark Tyler said. “Turnovers killed us, that and the lack of shooting. We got into no offense at all.”
The team called a couple of timeouts and talked about it, making some personnel changes and matching up better against Creswell through the second quarter, but they had a big hole left over from the first quarter.
At halftime, Coach Tyler talked to the team then let the athletes talk amongst themselves.
“Then they came out on the floor and played ball,” Coach Tyler. The Huskies turned the ball over nine times on the second half.
The Huskies closed the gap by four points in the third quarter, trailing 39-25, and by another four in the final quarter.
“We’re turning it over in areas we didn’t turnover last year,” Coach Tyler said. Last year, presses caused much of the Huskies’ turnover problems. This year, they’re turning the ball over in the easy plays, in-bounds passes and in the offense.
The other area where the Huskies are struggling is on defense, Coach Tyler said. It isn’t what it’s been in the past.
“We’re moving the ball around a lot more in our offense,” Coach Tyler said. “You can see by the numbers we’ve got several different people scoring.”
That may be one of the reasons for the high number of turnovers, Coach Tyler said. The team may be making one too many passes instead of shooting.
“It’s early,” Coach Tyler said. “There are a lot of new faces mixed in,” and only one player, Amanda Burcham, is in the same position as last year.
Mahria Zook led scoring with 14 points and five rebounds. Burcham aded eight with six rebounds. Kendra Greene, Mallory Carlson and Cindy Jones each scored two. Teresa Lewis scored one. The team tallied 17 rebounds and 12 assists, which are up from last year.
At Toledo, the Huskies lost 58-33. Toledo led 18-8 after the first quarter and 32-14 at halftime. Toledo widened the margin by one in the third to lead 47-28.
Zook led in scoring with 17 points and nine rebounds. Kaci Trask, Carlson, Greene, Nicole Burnside, Jones and Lewis each scored two points. Lewis added four rebounds. The team had 11 assists and 24 turnovers.
The Huskies are 1-2.
They will travel to Cottage Grove Thursday night for the first game of the anual Junction City-Pleasant Hill tournament, which will run through Saturday.
The junior varsity team is 2-1 with a 58-33 win over Creswell and a 52-25 loss to Toledo. Leading the Creswell game in scoring was Chelsea Hackworth with 17 points, Ashley Wall with 11 and Greene with 10.
The freshmen did not play Creswell. They lost 42-26 at Toledo. Wall led with 15 points. Tasha Coleman added eight. Hackworth scored six.