Defensive focus sends SC girls past McCook

SCHS senior Jade Glunz drives for a layup ahead of McCook's Kelsey Pohl during Friday's consolation game.

By Rod Haxton, editor

Following back-to-back losses in which they’d given up an average of 66 points, there was little question where the Scott Community High School girls would turn their attention in the consolation semi-finals of the Orange and Black tournament on Friday.

“Our main focus today was defense,” understated head coach Mark Campos.

The result was a 69-26 thumping of McCook, which was a complete reversal from Scott City’s 69-28 loss to state-ranked Bishop Carroll a day earlier.

“We stressed getting back to our pressure defense and challenging (McCook) on every possession. That’s one of the things which had been missing the last couple of games against TMP and Bishop Carroll.”

McCook had no answer for Scott City’s aggressive pressure. After McCook hit a trey that cut the Lady Beavers’ lead to 6-5, SCHS put together a 22-1 scoring run, capped off with Audrey Baker’s steal and layup with 3:52 left in the first half that put her team on top, 28-6.

After going more than eight minutes without a field goal, the Lady Bison added another trey moments later, but that turned out to be their only field goal of the second period as Scott City took a 36-11 lead into the break.

Scott City’s defense allowed McCook to hit just 13.6 percent from the field in the first half (3-of-22) and they improved on that only slightly in the second half, finishing the game just 8-of-46. On the other end of the floor, the Lady Beavers were an impressive 14-of-32 from the field in the first half (43.8%) and finished the game 23-of-56.

They were 5-of-8 from beyond the three-point line with Amanda Shearmire knocking down all four of her attempts from beyond the arc while finishing with a game high 17 points.

Scott City had a commanding 41-30 edge in rebounding, including 19 offensive rebounds.

“Rebounding was one of the areas where we really wanted to show some improvement. The girls crashed the boards hard and we were able to get a lot of second chance opportunities, while limiting McCook to a lot of one-shot possessions,” Campos points out.

Justine Woofter and Carissa Chelemedos each had identical outings with 12 points and eight rebounds while Jade Glunz contributed 11 points.

The Lady Beavers face Colby in Saturday’s fourth place game with tipoff at 2:00 p.m.