For the Tribune
MEDORA
The Medora girls basketball team overcame a slow start to defeat Washington Catholic 33-24 on Tuesday night in the Hornets’ Nest.
Medora coach Brad McCammon said his team might have started the game overconfident since the Cardinals only had five players available for the game and entered the contest with only one win.
“We came in a little sluggish, and I guess when we saw that they only had five kids we thought we were going to walk out here and win it,” he said. “They play a good schedule, and they hustled the
whole game.”
Both teams had trouble executing their offenses throughout the first half, resulting in a 17-10 lead for the Hornets. Medora shot 7-for-24 and had seven turnovers, while the Cardinals shot 3-for-15 and had 10 turnovers in the first 16 minutes.
“Early on, we were not understanding that they had some fairly quick guards and they kept penetrating, and we kept trying to get the kids to understand that we wanted them to play position defense,” McCammon said.
The Hornets defense kept the game close early on.
“We switched to a little bit of a match-up zone to try and stop that penetration because they weren’t hitting a lot from the outside, and that seemed to help us throughout most of the game,” McCammon said.
Carley McCammon hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter to spark the Hornets to a 10-5 lead, while Avery Carney scored two baskets inside, and McCammon added a deuce in the second period when the Hornets outscored the Cardinals 7-5.
A basket by Washington’s Sarah Wild cut Medora’s lead to 19-14 two minutes into the third period before McCammon took over and scored three straight field goals inside to boost Medora’s lead to 25-14.
The Cardinals didn’t go away without a fight as they scored the final three points of the third period, and the first seven of the fourth to close to within 25-24 on a basket by Hannah Ashby with 4:40 remaining.
Once again, McCammon stepped up for the Hornets with a 3-pointer, followed by a layup and a rebound basket to stretch Medora’s lead to 32-24 with 2:40 remaining.
McCammon led all players with 24 points, while Carney pulled down 11 rebounds and Megan Weddell had nine to help the Hornets dominate the rebounding 35-17.
Only three players scored for each team. Ashby topped the Cardinals (1-12) with 10 points.
The Hornets were 14-for-45 shooting from the floor for the game, while the Cardinals were 8-for-37. Washington had 15 turnovers.
Medora had 17 turnovers, and coach McCammon said his team needs to reduce that number to below 10.
“We’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the basketball and do a better job of free-throw shooting (2 of 6). Those things were very poor tonight, in my opinion. It wasn’t a pretty win, but I’ll take it.”
This game began a busy week for the Hornets, as they will play host to Springs Valley on Thursday and will travel to Union Dugger for girls-boys games Friday night.