Offensive woes doom Ladycats in 32-26 loss to Lady Jays

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RIPLEY — Unable to hold a 5-point lead midway through the third quarter, the Blanchester High School girls basketball team dropped a 32-26 non-league game Wednesday to Ripley in the Pepsi Classic.

The loss puts the Ladycats at 6-3 on the year. The Lady Blue Jays improve to 5-5.

The early afternoon tip time during the holiday break seemed to give both team problems.

“We didn’t play with a whole lot of energy,” BHS head coach Bennie Carroll said.

And when the Ladycats play without energy, their defense suffers.

“We weren’t able to turn them over a lot on our press,” said Carroll.

On offense, Carroll said his squad “missed a lot of easy shots which just seemed to drain the energy out of us.”

Blanchester led 21-16 in the third period thanks to a 3-pointer by Elecia Patton. After that, though, Blanchester’s offense went ice cold and Ripley surged to the lead.

“Ripley was a fundamentally sound team on both offense and defense,” Carroll said. “Both teams struggled offensively for most of the game. They also got 14 offensive rebounds on us which hurt. Some of that was us not doing a great job of boxing out and some was just them going to get the ball.”

Blanchester was 11 for 46 from the field and 2 for 9 at the free throw line.

Patton led BHS with 8 points. Emma Gundler had 6 points.

SUMMARY

December 28, 2016

Pepsi Classic

@Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington High School

Ripley 32 Blanchester 26

B 06.09.08.03…..26

R 04.12.09.07…..32

(26) BLANCHESTER (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Baldwin 1-0-0-2 Patton 3-2-0-8 O. Gundler 2-0-0-4 E. Gundler 2-0-2-6 Greene 1-0-0-2 Watters 1-0-0-2 Farrow 0-0-1-1. TOTALS 10-2-2-26

(32) RIPLEY (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Kirk 2-0-0-4 Arnett 4-2-1-11 Prater 1-0-2-4 Daulton 0-0-3-3 Gilkerson 2-0-4-8 Eichner 1-0-0-2. TOTALS 10-2-10-32

http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/12/web1_LOGO-bhs-letter-18.jpg

By Mark Huber

[email protected]

Reach Mark Huber at 937-556-5765, or on Twitter @wnjsports

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