ALTON – Civic Memorial has dropped just two girls basketball games this season.
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Eagle coach Jonathan Denney thinks he knows why.
“We've got two losses this season,” Denney said, “by a combined (nine points); three points to Highland and (six points to Washington, Mo.) and both games we got outworked.”
The Eagles fell behind 20-8 to the Bluejays at quarter time, but battled back and pulled to within three points in the late going before dropping a 53-47 decision to Washington in Monday evening's finale of the Liberty Bank Great Rivers Shootout at Alton's Redbird Nest.
The loss dropped CM to 17-2 on the year, while the Bluejays went to 11-1 on the season.
“We got outhustled, we got outscrapped and the scouting report's out,” Denney said. “If you outhustle us and we don't make shots, you're going to beat us. I feel that, as a collective whole, we're softer than we were two months ago. I don't want to take away from a few kids because they're grinding and playing as hard as they can, but as a collective whole, we're very soft right now.
“We're losing hustle plays; they're running down long rebounds, we're not meeting passes and they're flying in there. If we meet the pass, it's going to be a foul, but we're not dotting the 'i's' and crossing the 't's' and doing the little things and paying attention to detail. When you play a team that's as good as that, and a team that's as good as Highland, and they outwork you, they're going to beat you and that's what happened tonight.”
“We were a little worried about (Allie Troeckler) because we don't match up very well,” said Bluejay coach Adam Fischer. “Not only is she 5-10, 5-11, she's also quicker than most of our kids. We were worried about her in the post, so we wanted to have someone around her at all times; we did kind of a makeshift zone and we wanted to be there when (Alaria Tyus) and (Kaylee Eaton) caught the ball; they're 46 percent three-point shooters and they're deadly.
“We wanted them to either have to put the ball on the floor or shoot over us, and for the most part, we did a pretty good job on them.”
Fischer knew that despite having 12-point lead at quarter time, the Eagles weren't going to go away. “I told the girls...they're not out of this,” Fischer said. “This team will be right back in it, and sure as heck, it took us six minutes to put the first ball in the bucket in the second quarter; we stopped doing our thing, what made us successful in the first quarter.
“Some of that was we were tired, they were tired, they were pushing us a little further out. The credit goes to them; we felt we had a few counterpunches and we made few good shots or drives to the basket when we needed them in the third and fourth quarter.”
“I will say I didn't expect them to play zone,” Denney said, “and they did. They basically sold out to the fact we're going to give them 15-20 threes and hopefully they'll miss them (CM shot 2-for-16 from behind the arc). There's going to be night's like that, and I tell them what's going to balance that out is effort – boxing out and playing hard defensively.
“I thought defensively we were pretty good, except where we wouldn't slide in and take a charge or where we wouldn't block out and chase down a rebound. Those things are toughness; I'm gonna keep preaching it, we're going to keep working on it and get back hopefully to how we were playing earlier in the season.”
Troeckler led CM with 22 points on the night with nine rebounds, with Eaton adding six points and six rebounds; Washington was led by Jackie Arnold's 24 points, with sister Reese Arnold adding 14 and Nichole Brinker's seven. The Eagles next take on Columbia at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at home before meeting Carrollton at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the opening round of the Carrollton Tournament.
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