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A
strong second quarter from Logan Elm made a comeback just a little too
difficult for Amanda-Clearcreek as the Braves won 49-46 Tuesday night.
After falling behind 7-2 and 13-8, Logan Elm scored the first 13 points
of the second period and finished the half up 26-20.
“We
always seem to play one good quarter in the first half and one good
quarter in the second half,”
LE coach Donna Peters said.
“We
built a lead of eight points (in the third) but gave it back to them. We
talk about finishing and tonight we didn’t
finish well. We were plaqued by turnovers and we’ve
got to adjust to that and cut those down.”
Alex Welch had the last basket of the third period to put LE up 40-32
and scored the first of the fourth for a 10-point lead. After AC’s
Courtney Reynolds and LE’s
Andrea Anderson traded baskets, the Aces got a basket from Ashley
Saunders and a 3-pointer from Reynolds. Jennifer Goodman added a score
for the Aces with 4:26 left and Saunders scored 45 seconds later to pull
the Aces to within one at 44-43. A short while later, Saunders hit the
first of two free throws to tie the game.
Lacey Elliott stepped to the line for the Braves hitting the first shot
to put LE back on top. She missed the second but the Braves grabbed the
rebound and worked the ball around taking more than a minute off the
clock.
A turnover ended the possession but Elliott came through as she jumped
in front of an Aces’
pass as they were trying to bring the ball up the floor. She took it in
for a layup and a 47-44 lead with 1:51 left.
“She’s
got a great leaping ability,”
Peters said.
“She
blocked the ball and came right down and scored. Anywhere the ball was
tonight, she was a magnet to the ball.”
The outcome of the game was decided in the final few seconds as Megan
Meyer scored for the Aces with 12 seconds left. Being fouled on the
inbounds, Elliott went to the line for the Braves and sank both her
shots.
The Aces put up a potentially-tieing 3-pointer with the rebound coming
down to Amanda McDaniel for the Braves who was quickly tied up. The
possession arrow was in the favor of the Braves with 2.1 seconds
showing. The inbounds play got knocked out of bounds in favor of the
Aces with .8 seconds left. The ball was inbounded but AC was unable to
get a shot off before the buzzer.
“The
second quarter has been a problem,”
AC coach Butch Kobel said.
“Saturday
we only scored one point in the second quarter. We got ourselves in a
hole there. We had a little trouble against their pressure and we turned
the ball over in key situations. I thought our offensive execution, once
we got into it, was much better.”
“We
had a great effort but we’ve
got to do better executing against pressure. Donna did a nice job
changing up her defenses and we didn’t
adjust as well as I hoped we would.”
Anderson led all scorers with 23 points while Elliott added 15 for LE.
“Lacey
Elliott stepped up and did a nice job tonight running the offense and
looking to score,”
Peters said.
“Andrea
is in there getting rebounds and scoring.”
“All
in all, we did a decent job defensively with everybody doing more and
more each time.”
“We’ve
been close so hopefully this will help us going into our next game,”
Peters added.
“The
last two teams we’ve
played have pressured us like Circleville is going to do so hopefully we
can handle that.”
Saunders led AC with 18 and Reynolds put in 11.
The Aces will host Tree of Life Christian Academy Thursday night before
hosting Bloom-Carroll Saturday night. The Braves host Circleville
Saturday night.
Logan Elm was a 25-24 winner in the reserve game.
Scoring for the Braves were Alicia Salyers with 12 points, Janie
Waidelich with eight, Emily Woods and Britney Oberly with two each and
Chantel Harr with one.
McKensie Smith led AC with eight points, Emma Delong had five, Megan
Forquer had four, Alison Hines had three and Cara Thaxton and Crystal
Leach each had two.
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