Much closer

The Patriots traveled to St. John's Lutheran in Lansing tonight to take on Luther East. We weren't sure whether we would have a full team, as Alyssa's grandmother's wake was today, but she did attend the game before returning to the funeral home.

Scoring has been difficult for the girls this year, but not so much tonight. Luther East played a very tight zone defense and did not come out to cover the perimeter outside of fifteen to seventeen feet. So the girls shot from the outside. And shot. And shot. It was raining threes. And a few went in. More than a few, in fact. Out of the twenty-one launched, seven went in. [NOTE: Correction: the girls were eight for twenty.] However, Luther East had one very good player, both inside and out. Becca and Rachel tried to stop her inside, and each had three fouls before the end of the first quarter. Number 42, the good player had 13 of her team's 16 points in the first quarter. The Patriots spread things around a little more, with Kara and Alyssa each hitting a three and Cassidy had two two-pointers for four. Score at the end of one: 16-10, Luther East.

More outside shots poured down in the second. Not very many went in. Three out of twenty three, in fact. One was a three from Alyssa. Becca and Rachel each picked up their fourth fouls early in the quarter and sat down. This left open the inside and #42 took advantage of that. The Patriots were outscored 16-7 in the quarter, resulting in a halftime score of 32-17. #42 had 22 of the 32. Lee Bianchi, playing due to the foul trouble, hurled up several shots in the quarter and two went in.

The third was just like the first two, but now the shots started going in. The girls made three three-pointers in the quarter and a couple of twos and a free throw, but #42 kept knifing in for layups and rebounds. She scored eight in the quarter, her teammates got six and Luther East added a point to their lead, with the score at the end of three 46-30, the home team leading.

There were a couple of changes in the fourth; first, the Patriots put pressure on the ballhandler (#42) at half court, taking the ball out of her hands; and second, Luther East came out a little on our shooters. The Patriots solved that by swinging the ball to the weak side and still got open outside shots. The result was that the Patriots outscored LE 15-11 in the quarter. Not enough for the win, but enough to make it a decent game.

One interesting team stat for the game: the girls scored more in this game than the first three games combined. Individual stats: (note: there was a discrepancy between my scoring numbers and the gamebooks) Kara had twenty points, Alyssa had thirteen, Cassidy had eight and Lee had four. Alyssa led with nine rebounds, Kara had seven, Cassidy had six as did Rachel, Becca had four, Lee had three and Carolyn had two. Rachel and Becca had theirs in a little more than a quarter of play. Kara had eight assists and Alyssa had five. Alyssa had four steals and three blocks, and Kara had three steals.

I'm still trying to find a way to get the stats here. I'll keep working on this. Next game is Friday at Open Door Baptist against Victory Christian at 5:00 PM. Address is below in the calendar.