2005 Year in Review

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1st Conference double-digit win for F/S Fillies

By: Lindsey Smith
We tried out a new defense on Riverdale on Friday, the 14th. We’d only had two practices to work on it, and it looked good during practice. It was very frustrating to try and run an offense against, when the defending team was playing it correctly. So we said, “What the heck; let’s try it.”

Throughout the game it seemed to work well, when we ran the defense aggressively. The defense we were using caused some turnovers in the backcourt, so it was worth using it. (Thankfully, we don’t have any games until this Friday, so we’ll have plenty of time to work on it.)
With our defense finally holding it’s own, (without us trying to just play “Who Can Outscore Who”) we finally got our offense to open up some.
In the first quarter, we scored 11 points, while holding Riverdale to just five points. Three of their five came from the free throw line. Riverdale didn’t score on us until late in the first quarter, so that got most of us excited about this new defense. Kelly Tenboer was awesome offensively in the first. She got to the line six times and nailed five of them.
Riverdale started waking up in the second quarter. They figured out the weak point of our defense. Their big girls scored off of a couple put backs. The Lady Rams added 12 more points in the second, but we still outscored them. Kelly was again hot from the line. She drained her four shots that she got from the stripe. Jessica Scott also got more active inside. Jess added six points for us. By the end of the second quarter, we had scored 15 points, widening our lead to 9. The half-time score was 26-17.
We didn’t have that much to talk about at the half. Coach Roddy ran over how we could play the defense better. Our assistant coach, Mr. Tenboer, told us to get more aggressive, so we could get a double-digit lead.
So we tried it, and what do you know?! It worked. We became more aggressive on defense, and Riverdale still scored 12. They made some lucky shots, banking them high off of the glass from the baseline. But on offense, we broke away more often. Our defensive pressure caused many steals and turnovers. The third quarter belong to Ashlie Patten. She scored 8 in a row. Ash wasn’t the only one alive in the third. Jessica kept the points rolling, scoring six more. By the end of the third, we had our first double-digit lead in conference play: 42-29.
Both teams scored six points in the fourth quarter. Four of ours came from free throws. We closed out the game and won by a 13-point margin: 48-35. Our records are now 7-10 overall and 3-4 in conference.
Three of our starters were in double figures. (Riverdale had no one in doubles.) Kelly and Jessica both scored 15 points to lead all scorers of the game. Ashlie was right behind them with 12. Brandy Stuart put in 3 points and Brianne Janssen knocked in 2. Tristan Vander Leest added one more point.
Both teams were close in field goals. Riverdale made 15 shots, while we knocked home 16. Where we won the game was at the charity stripe. (That’s what you get for being more aggressive.) Riverdale was called for 17 fouls, and we had just 10. Making it to the line 23 times, we hit 16 of our shots. (Riverdale was 5-8.) Kelly was hot at the line, draining 9 of her 10 attempts. Jessica nailed 3 of her 4 shots. Brianne scored 2 times out of three tries. Brandy and Tristan each knocked in 1 shot out of 2 attempts. Liz Urban earned two charity stripe shots, but couldn’t cash them in.
We have a busy and important two weeks ahead of us. Check out the Varsity Amboy article (“Fillies Drown the Lady Clippers”) to see when and where you can watch us play. Hurry…we only have 3 weeks left!

by larryg
2005-01-18 23:36:44