Owls can’t overcome early deficit against Franklin

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For The Tribune

FRANKLIN

In high school basketball, teams need to be physically and mentally ready to give 100 percent every time they take the floor.

Teams that are not ready are likely going to pay the consequences, like the Seymour boys did Saturday night at Franklin.

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For the third straight game in this young season, the Owls fell behind early and were unable to climb out of a big hole — enabling Franklin to coast to an 85-51 win.

“It’s a mentality to be able to come right out and be ready to play,” Owls varsity assistant coach Brent Jameson said.

“We’ve got to be in the right mindset early on, and we just weren’t. We didn’t prepare our guys well enough, and as a coaching staff that falls on our shoulders.”

The Cubs held a 7-2 lead less than three minutes in before the Owls went on a 9-2 run to take an 11-10 lead on a basket by Seth Ragon with 2:50 left in the opening period.

Franklin closed the first period on a 7-0 run for a 17-11 lead. Jordan Miller scored off an offensive rebound at the start of the second period before the Cubs doubled the score to 26-13 on a 3-pointer by Cameron Smith at 5:50 of the second period.

A layup by Ragon, 3-pointer by Toriek Miller and a free throw by Ragon left the Owls trailing 31-19 with 4:12 on the clock.

Franklin used a 9-0 run to open a 42-19 cushion and held a 46-23 lead at the break.

The Owls had possession at the start of the third quarter, but a pass sailed out of bounds, and Smith hit a 3-pointer at the other end, and the Cubs increased their lead to 63-36 at the end of the third period.

“I think something we really need to do is get back to defending,” Jameson said. “Our scores were a lot lower last year. We’re playing faster this year. We’ve got to continue to defend. We’re not going to win giving up 80-some points. That’s not what we’re about as a program.”

Franklin shot 31-for-59 for the night, while the Owls finished with 18-for-44 shooting. The Cubs made 14 3-pointers, including three each by Cameron Rigney, Jarrett Bertsch and Bruce Wentzell.

“We knew they could shoot the 3,” Jameson said. “A lot of those guys were 3-point shooters last year, so we were not necessarily surprised. What really hurt was allowing a lot of penetration and then kicking it out to shooters.

“We were getting sucked in, and lot of them were off of offensive rebounds that they were kicking back out, or early in transition.”

The Cubs out-rebounded the Owls 33-20. Seymour had 13 turnovers and the Cubs committed 7.

Toriek Miller and Tyler Bloom topped the Owls with 10 points each, while Ragon was high rebounder with six.

Smith topped the Cubs (2-0) with 19, Andrew Hartkorn netted 13 and Berthsch had 11.

The Owls (0-3) will be home twice this weekend, facing Jeffersonville on Friday for a Hoosier Hills Conference game, and Whiteland on Saturday night.

“The message is ‘get back to work,’” Jameson said. “It’s about really having that mentality that I talked about every single day.

“When you come in you know you’ve got to compete and the message we send our kids is, ‘In 4A basketball, in the state of Indiana, if you’re not ready to compete this is what can happen.’ As a coaching staff we just didn’t get the job done preparing these kids to play tonight.”

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