For The Tribune
The Seymour girls basketball team outscored Madison 19-2 over an 8-minute span in the third and fourth quarters to break open a tight game and coast to a 62-41 victory Saturday at the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium.
“I thought we played well, I thought we played hard at times,” Owls coach Jason Longmeier said after his team improved to 4-0 in the Hoosier Hills Conference and 10-1 overall.
After the teams traded baskets at the start of the third quarter, Lauren James scored on a short jumper from the left side of the lane, and Morgan Ritz followed with a 3-pointer and the Owls had their biggest lead up to that point at 37-24 with 4:55 on the clock.
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Following a 3-pointer by Madison’s Delaney Liter, the Owls scored a variety of ways as Mikayla Fee drove for a layup, Kayla Griffin dropped in a jump shot, and Ashton Chase hit a 3-pointer from the corner for a 44-27 lead after three.
Madison shot 2-for-8 in the third period, and was out-rebounded 9-4 during that time.
The Owls stayed hot at the start of the fourth as Fee scored off a rebound, Lubker made her third 3-pointer of the day, and James drove for another layup and it was 51-27 with 5:45 remaining.
Seymour shot 25-for-56 for the day, while the Cubs were 15-for-47. The Owls had a 40-23 advantage on the boards with Fee grabbing 14 and Griffin 9.
“We did a good job on the boards,” Longmeier said. ‘We controlled the boards. We got ourselves some second-chance points today which we spent a lot of time the last couple weeks talking about.
“I feel like we left some points at the rim today, that we could have gotten inside, that we let get away from us. I think our footwork had a lot to do with that, and that’s the good thing about this stretch that we have coming up.”
Lubker had a hot hand early as she drained a pair of 3-pointers within 45 seconds in the middle of the first period. She had 8 points in the quarter and topped the Owls in scoring with 15 points. Fee had a double-double with 10 points to go along with 14 rebounds.
Lindsey Hume also hit a 3-pointer in the first period.
“The early threes kind of made them have to come out and get after us a little bit more and it kind of opened up the middle a little bit,” Longmeier said. “When we’re shooting the three ball the way we’re capable of shooting three it makes really tough to defend us.
“Madison played hard, and I think (6-foot junior Sage) Sproles is one of the better athletes that we’re going to play against. I thought they did a better job, up to this point of anybody we’ve played, of taking away some of the things we wanted to do, especially with the high-low. They got real physical with Griffin and Fee down in the post. We made some adjustments out of it, and we did some things, but they hurt us in our press. We didn’t do a very good job of doing some things on the back side. That’s a work in progress.”
Liter topped the Cubs (6-4, 0-3 HHC) with 13 points.