Girls Basketball: Elmwood holds off scrappy McComb By ANDREW WILLIAMS Staff Writer MCCOMB — Elmwood’s Ashley Veryser scored seven of her team’s first nine points of the game as the Royals grabbed a 17-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. It was her final two points of the game, a pair of free throws with 12.2 seconds left in overtime, that proved to be the most crucial of the night. Veryser knocked home both free throws and Elmwood came away with a 51-47 nonconference victory against a scrappy McComb squad Monday night. Entering the fourth quarter, overtime was probably a best-case scenario for the Panthers. After trailing 24-22 at halftime, McComb (0-3) went more than six minutes into the third quarter without scoring before Kara Reigle hit a 3-pointer with 1:20 left in the period. The Panthers were outscored 13-3 in the quarter and Elmwood’s lead ballooned to 37-25 entering the final eight minutes of regulation. With only nine players on the roster, though, McComb clawed its way back into the game. A pair of free throws from Nora Hemminger capped a 14-2 run for the Panthers that tied the game at 39-all with 3:07 remaining in the fourth quarter. Rebecca Harvey, Samantha Ervin and Jaela Kynard each split a pair of free throws to put the Royals (2-2) up 42-39 with less than two minutes to play in regulation. An offensive rebound by Jenna Herr off a missed free throw led to a basket by Camryn Sudlow that tied the game at 43-43 with 34.3 seconds left. Elmwood had a chance to win the game in regulation when a long rebound bounced out to Veryser who sprinted toward the basket with the clock winding down. Her layup went down, but not before time expired. Kynard scored the first three points of overtime for the Royals before Sudlow’s basket got McComb within 47-46. Kendall Newcomer hit 1 of 2 free throws following a Harvey bucket to make it 49-47. But Veryser’s free throws with 12.2 seconds remaining put the game out of reach. She finished with a game-high 17 points. “Give them all the credit,” Elmwood coach Doug Reynolds said. “I knew, I scouted them. They’re just feisty and they’re good. We hit some foul shots at the end. I’m proud of the kids just fighting away from home and pulling out a win in overtime.” Despite being outscored 19-7 in the fourth quarter, the Royals did not perform poorly overall during that stretch. They were 10 of 17 from the foul line in the second half compared to 4 of 8 for the Panthers and they won the battle on the glass 29-14 after halftime. The biggest problem, though, came in the form of 14 second-half turnovers. “Our kids just did not handle the ball,” Reynolds said. “They got excited and that cannot happen. They cannot let that kind of stuff happen. We’ll go back and we’ll work on it. “These young kids are coming. They’re starting to mesh together. I’m proud that we pulled that out at the end there.” Ervin finished with a double-double of 12 points and 14 rebounds and Kynard added 11 points and four assists. The effort McComb put in to get back into the game in the fourth quarter may have ultimately been its undoing. With limited depth, the Panthers didn’t get many chances to rest the starters who played for extended stretches without a break. If not down 37-25 after three quarters, McComb’s strategy may have been a little different. “I think our plan was to go (man-to-man defense) in the fourth quarter,” McComb coach Jeremy Herr said. “All of our energy was getting back into it instead of trying to stretch a lead. We kept it close, but this is one we gave away.” Hailey Buck led McComb with 13 points and three assists, while Hemminger netted 10 points to go with eight steals, six rebounds and three assists. The Panthers only turned the ball over 13 times, but were outrebounded 45-25. They struggled shooting as well, making 29.3 percent (17 of 58) of their shots from the field and hitting just 7 of 12 from the foul line. “We can run a man-to-man (defense) and we can play aggressively, but we can only do it for short spurts of time,” Herr said. “When you’re 12 points down and you battle back, you expend a lot of energy. When you shoot under 30 percent from the field, it’s hard to win basketball games. That’s really what it comes down to.” ELMWOOD (2-2) Bradford 0-0—0, Sears 2-1—5, Kynard 4-3—11, Veryser 6-3—17, Harvey 1-2—4, George 1-0—2, Marsh 0-0—0, Ervin 4-4—12. TOTALS: 18-41 13-23 — 51. MCCOMB (0-3) Hemminger 3-4—10, Buck 5-0—13, Duran 0-0—0, Newcomer 0-1—1, Sudlow 3-1—7, Herr 3-1—9, Reigle 3-0—7. TOTALS: 17-58 7-12 — 47. Elmwood 17 7 13 7 7 — 51 McComb 13 9 3 19 3 — 47 3-Point GOALS: Elmwood 2-7 (Veryser 2); McComb 6-24 (Buck 3, Herr 2, Reigle 1). rebounds: Elmwood 45 (Ervin 14); McComb 25 (Herr 8). turnovers: Elmwood 26; McComb 13.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:03:06 +0000
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