Lady Wildcats Dominate Springfield (Mo.) Glendale
Last updated Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:55 PM CST in Sports
By Nathan Allen
The Morning News
SPRINGDALE -- Sandy Wright smiled, pumped her fist in the air and clapped her hands as she walked off the court of Wildcat Arena on Tuesday night.
Through only three games this season, it's been a good start for the Springdale Har-Ber Lady Wildcats, and Wright couldn't be happier.
With Har-Ber's 74-50 nonconference victory over the Springfield (Mo.) Glendale Lady Falcons on Tuesday, the Lady Wildcats are now 3-0 on the young season, which is also the team's best start in its two-year history.
"We were o-fer at the start of last season, so yeah, this is nice," said Wright, the Lady Wildcats' coach. "We're playing well to start the year, but we've got some things to improve, and we're slowly doing that."
Even though Har-Ber junior Epiphany Smith scored a game-high 23 points and senior Kelsey Qualls added 13, offense wasn't the story for the Lady Wildcats on Tuesday.
Har-Ber used a hurry-up, high-pressure defense against Glendale (0-2) and forced it into 18 first-half turnovers.
Har-Ber and Glendale also combined for 66 fouls.
"We haven't seen that yet, so we weren't ready for it," Glendale coach Renee Temple said. "It kind of got a little ugly with all the fouling, but nonetheless, we needed to see that kind of defense to get us ready for later in our season."
Har-Ber seniors Laura Beth Anderson and Erin Wright combined for 13 of their team's 28 rebounds and also helped dominate the paint for the Lady Wildcats.
"That's what we strive to do, just be physical underneath the basket," Wright said. "We've been stressing that for a while."
And even worse for Glendale's players, when they seemed to find open shots, they didn't fall as the Lady Falcons only shot 29 percent (12 of 41) from the floor.
Glendale's Jennissa Barker and Stephanie Todd did most of the scoring for the Lady Falcons, combining for 26 points -- most of which came from layups.
"It's a work in progress," Temple said. "We're getting better, but the season is still young. Hopefully, we'll improve on that sooner rather than later."
Nonconference
HAR-BER 74, SPRINGFIELD (MO.) GLENDALE 50
Springfield 6 14 16 14 -- 50
Har-Ber 17 23 17 17 -- 74
Springfield (0-2): Barker 16, Todd 10, Hall 7, O'Connell 4, Looney 4, Lyons 4, Cataldi 3, Duckworth 2.
Har-Ber (3-0): Smith 23, Qualls 13, Anderson 12, Ledbetter 5, Peek 5, Burlingame 5, Bender 4, Wright 2, Meads 2, Andrade 1.
Reader Comments (No comments posted.)
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
Not already registered?
