Lady Owls overcome deficit to defeat Mitchell

MITCHELL - The road lately has been unkind to the Seymour girls basketball team as they have lost their last two to Lafayette Jeff and Columbus East since returning from the holiday break.

Their third road game was against a tough Mitchell squad on Saturday afternoon at the Hive.

Things looked bleak for the Lady Owls for two and a half quarters until they finally got a few breaks late in the fourth quarter, which helped them prevail 73-63 to end a modest two-game losing streak, and it snapped the Bluejackets' eight-game win streak.

At 3:15 in the fourth, Kristin Turner knocked down her first 3-pointer of the game to give the Owls the lead for good at 64-62, and the Owls scored five of its final seven points from the free throw line.

"The kids came out today with a lot of fight and a lot of heart," Owls coach Beth DeVinney said. "We told them in the last timeout they need to come out like a tiger, and the last two minutes they did play like tigers."

The Owls shot the ball well in the first quarter and took the Bluejackets by surprise as they opened a 6-0 lead until Natalie Morse calmly sank her first 3-pointer of the day for Mitchell. The Owls led until 1:19 of the first when Brianne Fults put the Bluejackets up 18-16 after one.

Erin Murphy put the Owls on top 21-19 with a layup at 6:21 of the second, but Morse made a 3-pointer for Mitchell to regain the lead. The Owls later led 27-24, but Mitchell outscored the Owls 14-2 over the final 3:30 of the second to lead at halftime.

"We went to some zone and they are a hard team to defend against because they shoot so well," DeVinney said. "If you think about zone and don't defend, you will give up a lot of easy shots, but we kind of mixed it up. Once we went to our press, Meredith Adams and Bridgette Jones did a heck of a job putting pressure on the basketball."

Mitchell extended its lead 40-29, their biggest of the game, in the third. Finally, the Owls began to chip away and outscored the Bluejackets 18-12 in the third and trailed 50-47 heading into the fourth. Amanda Moore scored six points by hitting her first three shots in the third, and she finished the game with 22 points.

Moore scored the first four points of the fourth that put the Owls on top 51-50, but Mitchell's Courtney McClain responded with a basket to retake the lead. Moore scored her sixth straight point, which allowed the Owls to use a 7-0 spurt and take the 58-52 lead. The lead bounced back and forth until the Owls secured the win.

"Amanda played well and the credit goes to her for being a freshman," DeVinney said. "The credit also goes to Erin and Kristin. Erin had nine rebounds for a guard and that's good. Kristin gave Amanda the ball and I am sure her assist ratio keeps going up and up."
Defensively, the Owls stepped up and shut out Morse in the second half as she was 0 of 7 from the floor.

"We really hurt their guards late in the game," DeVinney said. "We missed a couple of easy shots, but it's going to be that way. We just continued to plug away and finally got some shots to fall. This is a character-builder for us. It's a big win, big game against a good team with similar records. The bottom line is we have to show up to play every game."

Bluejackets coach Frank Decker said, "I think they rotate more players in than we do, and not making any excuses, we lost Shelby Wilson, who was one of our starters, with an ACL. It's not that we lost a starter, but one of our rotation players.

 
Once Seymour picked their press up, they forced us into a few turnovers and our fatigue led to frustration."

Turner added 15 points for the Owls, while Bridgette Jones had 14 and Murphy contributed 13.

Fults came off the bench to lead Mitchell with 14 points. Amanda Trambaugh had 11.

Box score

At Mitchell
Seymour 16 13 18 26-73
Mitchell 18 20 12 13-63
Seymour (10-3): Turner 6-17 1-4 15, Moore 10-18 2-4 22, Murphy 3-11 4-5 13, B. Jones 5-7 4-4 14, Reinhart 1-1 0-1 2, Adams 3-6 1-2 7, H. Jones 0-2 0-0 0, Hoene 0-1 0-0 0, totals 28-63 12-20 73.
Mitchell (9-3): Trambaugh 4-7 1-5 11, Hardman 1-3 5-8 7, Trevithick 0-1 0-2 0, Morse 6-20 0-1 14, Cockerham 1-5 6-6 8, Fults 5-5 2-2 14, McClain 4-6 1-2 9, totals 21-45 15-23 63.
3-point goals: S 4-20 (Turner 1-7, Moore 0-5, Murphy 3-7, H. Jones 0-1), M 6-16 (Trambaugh 2-4, Morse 2-10, Fults 2-2); Rebounds: S 37 (Murphy 9, Adams 8), M 34 (Trambaugh 10, Hardman 7); Turnovers: S 18, M 29; Fouls: S 21 (fouled out: Adams), M 13 (fouled out: McClain).
Junior varsity
Seymour 16 16 18 6-56
Mitchell 2 9 2 3-16
Seymour (12-1): Abel 15, Tormoehlen 9, Lorenzo 7, Wieneke 7, Hoene 6, H. Jones 5, Booth 4, Browning 2, Sutton 1.