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NHS swim teams open season at Dallas
Newberg uses forfeits, pins to
wallop Dallas
Sharks swim to fourth in Christmas
Invitational
Tigers
struggle,
fall to Mac |
The NHS girls basketball team scores just 23 points in
Tuesday's 27-23 loss to McMinnville |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
 It seemed like somebody put a lid on top of both baskets.
Newberg and McMinnville girls basketball teams battled it out in ... we’ll,
let’s just say it was a defensive battle that McMinnville won, 27-23.
“It was a frustrating night offensively,” said Newberg coach Marianne
Funderhide. “We couldn’t get anything to work. We ran everything we had and the
ball just wasn’t going in the basket.”
But a lot of Newberg’s offensive miscues were due to the McMinnville
defense, Funderhide said.
“McMinnville did a good job defensively,” she said. “I
don’t want to take anything away from them. They stuck to their game plan and
slowed us down and didn’t get into a running match with us, which was a benefit to
them.”
The Tigers got off to a slow start, down 10-2 midway through the first
quarter. The Tigers battled back to go into halftime down only 17-14. A big part of that
was that the Tigers held McMinnville scoreless for the final 4:30 of the second quarter.
“We came out really flat and I think both teams did a good job
defensively,” Funderhide said. “Both teams did what they needed to do
defensively and offensively, sometimes we forced things, sometimes it was there and it
just didn’t go for us, we were getting bumped in there and we weren’t finishing
shots. But we’ve been scoring in the 40s and 50s so this is disappointing because
scoring is not our weakness.”
The Tigers were plagued by turnovers throughout the game and it was a point
Funderhide said she went over with the team at halftime.
“It was first home game jitters, I think, and we had a lot of turnovers
and just talked about taking care of the basketball ...,” she said. “I felt like
we weren’t playing great ball and we were only down by three, so it could have been a
lot worse.”
In the third quarter, both teams went more than five minutes without a point
scored. With three seconds left in the quarter, McMinnville scored to put the Tigers down
23-16 to enter the fourth quarter. The way the game was being played, coming back from a
seven-point lead seemed as likely as winning the lottery.
But the Tigers managed to battle back. Senior Alli Jensen scored all of
Newberg’s seven points in the quarter. Down 25-20, Jensen, who led the Tigers with 13
points, drilled a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:24 left to pull Newberg within 25-23.
After the team’s traded turnovers, Newberg had a chance to tie the game. With 24
seconds remaining, NHS senior Vanessa Schmitz took a shot inside the paint but the ball
rolled out and McMinnville’s Ashley Bernards hit two free throws with 19 seconds left
to hand the Tigers the loss.
The missed shot by Schmitz was indicative of the entire night.
“It really was,” Funderhide said. “We just couldn’t buy a basket.
Those were the kinds of shots we wanted tonight. We got it in the paint and got the last
look but it just didn’t go.”
The bigger Tigers seemed unable to take advantage of their height by snagging
offensive rebounds against the Grizzlies.
“We did not hit the offensive boards very well tonight and with the
shooting percentage that we had to have had, we needed to crash the offensive
boards,” Funderhide said.
The Tigers also struggled from the free-throw line. In fact, Newberg shot two free
throws during the entire game and missed both.
“Offensively, we were not very aggressive,” Funderhide said. We
only got to the line two times and I know (McMinnville’s) Amanda Cline was 7-8 just
in the first half.“
Funderhide said she has been happy with the defensive effort put forth by
senior guard Meghan Leonard.
“I thought (Leonard) did a good job defensively and I made
that comment to them, too,” she said. “Meghan, day in and day out, is defending
against the top players from the other teams really well.”
Newberg fell to 2-2 overall and 0-1 in the Pac-9 Conference with the loss.
“Last year, our loss to McMinnville kept us out of the second-place
playoff spot,” Funderhide said. “It is a tough loss because sometimes your home
losses like this come back and hurt you later on in the season. We are down but we are not
out. It’s early. We have to get them at our place and we have to do some other things
and sneak up on some other teams.”
Funderhide said a loss like Tuesday’s could inspire the Tigers.
“These kids won’t quit or give up, so we’ll just learn from this and
sometimes you can learn more from your losses more than you can from your wins,” she
said. “That’s what we’ll do. We’ll take this and learn from it.” |
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From Dec. 13
2003, Newberg Graphic
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