EHS girls can’t overcome lack of rebounding in 63-58 loss
By Michael Ashford
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
One stat told the whole story for the Emporia High girls basketball team in its 63-58 loss to Topeka High Tuesday night.
Total rebounds: Topeka High 41, Emporia 21.
The Lady Trojans used a bevy of rebounds — including 16 on the offensive end — and a strong inside game to turn back the Lady Spartans. Emporia actually took more shots than Topeka High (53-52), but the Lady Trojans were more effective in converting on those shots, mostly in the low post area, Emporia coach Bill Nienstedt said.
“We just got killed not only in rebounding, but allowing the ball to be thrown in the post in the first place,” coach Bill Nienstedt said. “I think that causes you rebounding problems, because they (Topeka High) are an effective team in the post. Obviously, we weren’t very sound defensively when the ball got inside.”
Emporia actually held the lead for most of the first quarter and into the second quarter thanks to an ability to break through Topeka High’s pressure. The Spartans converted on several fast breaks and got some wide open looks in gaining a 19-18 advantage after one period.
“They tried to pressure us, and we’d hit it in the gut and we’d get a layup or a fast-break three-on-two,” EHS forward Sadie Webb said. “We worked on that a lot in practice the last week.”
Nienstedt said his team’s ability to break Topeka High’s pressure was an encouraging sign, especially after last week’s loss to Shawnee Mission East in which East’s pressure forced 21 Lady Spartan turnovers.
“Pressure bothered us badly last week, and we punished their pressure bad enough that they had to get out of it,” Nienstedt said. “We attacked the basket and got easy baskets early. In fact, we attacked and defeated their pressure so well that it may have hurt us in the long run because they got out of it really quickly.”
A layup and a free throw from Lexi Hileman and a 3-pointer from Nichole Naab to open the second quarter stretched Emporia’s lead to 25-18, but back to back fouls on Hileman and Webb forced Nienstedt to turn to his bench. In the absence of Hileman and Webb, the Lady Trojans rolled off a 12-1 run to go up 30-26, and Topeka High never trailed again.
“That run happened when our two bigs, Lexi and Sadie, got in foul trouble,” Nienstedt said. “Right now, when those two get in foul trouble, we get really young in a hurry. The next two kids we bring in are a freshman and a sophomore, who are both doing a good job, but they’re freshmen and sophomores.”
Topeka High held a 36-34 halftime advantage, but Emporia could never draw any closer than that, and the Lady Trojans routinely kept the Lady Spartans at bay with the strong inside games of Ivy Morrison (8 points, 10 rebounds), Jackie Hoyt (22 points, 9 rebounds) and Myah Sprew (16 points, 10 rebounds).
“They got a lot of rebounds. On most of them, we weren’t boxing out,” Naab said. “They would crash the boards. They would be outside the three-point line and then just crash, and if they missed a shot, one of their players was just wide open under the basket on the other side.”
After Topeka High led by as many as eight points in the second half, Emporia drew to within five several times and even got it to four with 13 seconds left on a basket from Lindy Anrdt, but it simply was not enough.
“We played way, way better tonight than we did last week. We showed a great deal of improvement,” Nienstedt said. “But the bottom line is it still wasn’t quite enough. I’m not sure we played as hard as we needed to on every possession, but at no point did I look out and see that we were playing as if we didn’t have a chance anymore. And we made some shots at the end there that made it kind of interesting.”
Naab led Emporia with 19 points while Jessica Muckenthaler added 14 points. Webb led Emporia on the boards with 6. The Lady Spartans will not play again until Jan. 5 at Topeka West.