Staff Photo/Brian Jauger Garfield’s Mandy Cardinal runs down the court while being guarded by champion sophomore Brilea Woods. The Cardinal scored a game-high 11 points.
Monday’s first half was slow, but it was a gut check for Garfield.
At halftime, coach Aaron Gilbert challenged his team.
The G-Men survived the push of the champion defense and had scoring opportunities, defeating the Golden Flashes 46-25.
“We were very inconsistent in our play.” Gilbert said. “We had a big gut check at halftime. The game could have gone one of two ways. They did a great job of bothering Mandy (Cardinal) tonight, and other guys We had to step up, and they did. I told them at halftime that the second half was going to be a ‘do.’ Who wants it more? And thankfully we were the ones who wanted more of it. ”
The champions’ box-and-one defense against the Cardinal limited the junior to one bucket of points in the first half. She led the team with 11 points.
With the Cardinal covering most of the game, it opened up opportunities for players elsewhere.
“We were talking about how that’s how they’re going to do it. We can replicate that in practice, but it’s completely different when it comes to games.” Gilbert said. “Sometimes you just need to calm down. For us, it’s important that in terms of consistency, to know who gets noticed and who doesn’t, we don’t have a lot of players playing consistently. Tonight, freshman Leah Hill stepped up and when we needed her, especially Colby. When (Fresh) fouled out, she really helped us out. And then the sophomores coming in off the bench with Kyleen (McMayon), she did a great job of helping out, more than anything. , we were able to look for Mandy in the second half and she was able to get it.”
With the win, Garfield improved to 6-7 on the season and 5-3 in league play.
The champions fall to 6 wins and 10 losses on the year, and 4 wins and 5 losses in the league.
With this loss, the Flashes’ winning streak ended at three. Despite the loss, first-year champion coach Sean Zekur was pleased with the effort.
“They were coachable and followed the game plan. This year, it was kind of our Achilles heel to get excited about our youth and get a little swerve. Maybe our defensive coordination was off. They might make mistakes with adjustments and rotations, but tonight we shot, we worked on the game plan, we talked about it, we put them through different situations, and they executed it tonight. .” Zekur said. “I’m always happy with this type of game.”
The champions will look to get back in the win column Wednesday at Mineral Ridge.
