Greenfield-Central’s Brooklyn McConnell avoids a Connersville defender for a basket Tuesday.
Mike Brown | For The Daily Reporter
By Brady Extin | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — The Greenfield-Central girls basketball team is in uncharted territory this month.
After a four-game losing streak from November 18 to December 1, the Cougars have since reeled off four straight wins, capped off by Tuesday’s 46-41 victory over the visiting Connersville Spartans.
“A four-game win streak is awesome. We were on the other side of that this season, so we’re getting better,” Greenfield-Central head coach Bradley Key said. “We’ve got to make sure we shore it up a little better, but a win’s-a-win’s-a-win. That’s four in a row, and we’ll take that into Christmas.”
Not only is the four-game win streak new territory for the Cougars this season, but the offensive display they showed in the first half is something that has eluded them this season. too.
“I thought that the first half was really good. I thought we played well, moved the ball well, and I thought we played as a team,” Key said. “Scoring has been our Achilles heel, so when we came out in the first half and put up 32, that’s great for us. We’ve been known to not be able to string four quarters together offensively, so for us to win, we’re going to have to play great defense.”
Scoring from all five Cougars’ starters helped fuel a 16-9 first-quarter lead. An Aryana Hibbard 3-pointer and Brooklyn McConnell layup to open the second quarter pushed the Greenfield-Central lead to 21-9.
That was the beginning of a 14-0 G-C run that culminated in a 30-9 G-C advantage midway through the second quarter.
“We’re going to have to have several kids to score,” Key said. “I thought Aryana stepped up. Brooklyn did a good job of running the point in the second half, Jalyn [Smith] stepped up, and I thought Kammi [Anderson] had a great first half. That’s big going forward.”
Hibbard knocked down a trio of 3-pointers and led G-C with 14 points. McConnell added nine, Chaney Brown had seven, Smith had six, and Katie Holmes rounded out the scoring from the starters with two. Anderson added six off the bench.
Behind the high-scoring first half, the Cougars found themselves once again in a position they haven’t been in too often this season — playing with a big lead.
“We hadn’t been up on teams very much this year, so we’ve just got to learn how to extend those leads, and realize how important every possession is. We’re getting to the point where we’re learning to win, and when you get up on a team, you’ve got to learn to put them away,” Key said. “Connersville was down similarly to Lawrenceburg not that long ago, and came back, so we had that talk that you’ve got to make sure you’re doing the little things.”
Learning to play with a lead may have been Key’s point of emphasis, but that didn’t stop Connersville from storming back.
Fueled by the 3-ball, the Spartans outscored G-C 25-14 in the second half.
An Addison Jones 3-pointer to open up the fourth quarter cut the G-C back down to just 10.
Jones led Connersville with 15 points, and knocked down four second-half 3-pointers, including back-to-back baskets with 2:10 left in the game to force a G-C timeout with the score 46-38.
“They did a good job of getting the ball inside, and then they had a girl hit four 3-pointers in the second half. We’ve got to recognize that sooner, and that’s partly on me,” Key said. “I’ve got to make sure we’re covering that up. I thought we were good for a while, but we were not.”
Following the timeout, the Cougars deployed an offense in hopes of stalling the clock. It did just that.
“In the fourth quarter we ran the offense, and learned from some other teams that struggled when Connersville forced them into some bad spots, but we did a good job of running that clock down,” Key said.
After running out the majority of the clock, a last-second 3-pointer by the Spartans pushed their team total over 40 points, the first time G-C has allowed over that mark on the win streak.
“I was hyping us about the last few games where we’ve held teams to 38, 39 points. That’s tremendous,” Key said. “We did similar things tonight. Still, holding them to 41 is a good number.”
The four-game win streak has the Cougars sitting at 7-6 heading into a break in the schedule. They return to action noon on Tuesday, Dec. 27 against Indian Creek in the Lebanon Holiday Tournament.
Greenfield-Central 46, Connersville 41
Connersville;9;7;9;16;-;41
Greenfield-Central;16;16;6;8;-;46
Connersville (7-7): Sara Ruble 0 0-0 0, McKenna Lucas 4 0-2 8, Hailey Sembach 5 2-2 12, Addison Jones 5 0-0 15, Jacey Willhelm 1 0-0 3, Ahniyah Bennett 1 0-2 3. Totals 16 2-6 41.
Greenfield-Central (7-6): Brooklyn McConnell 3 4-4 11, Chaney Brown 3 1-4 7, Aryana Hibbard 5 1-1 14, Jayln Smith 3 0-0 6, Katie Holmes 1 0-0 2, Taylor Smith 0 0-0 0, Kammi Anderson 3 0-0 6, Emma Nelson 0 0-0 0. Totals: 18 6-9 46.
3-point goals: Connersville 7 (Jones 5, Willhelm 1, Bennett 1), Greenfield-Central 4 (Hibbard 3, McConnell 1)
