NEW PALESTINE — The first game under a new head coach, the first game without the school’s all-time leading scorer, and the absence of one of their senior leaders.
The New Palestine girls basketball team had the odds stacked against them on Thursday night.
And although they fell 35-28 at home to the visiting Connersville Spartans, a young Dragons team gave first-year head coach Craig Moore plenty of things to take away from the opening night performance, both good and bad.
“There were a lot of nerves tonight, but it was opening night for Connersville too. Credit to them for doing a great job and executing what they wanted to,” Moore said. “We’ve got some things to work on defensively, and I really preach to the girls about having a short memory. If you miss a shot or make a mistake you move on, but we’re a pretty young team and there’s a lot of youth on the floor, so it’s just going to take some time. I did see a lot of bright spots though, so we’ll build off of that.”
In all four quarters, the Dragons came out hot, but couldn’t maintain themselves offensively for all eight minutes.
Senior Allie Blum opened the scoring with a 3-pointer, but the Spartans outscored the Dragons 12-1 the remainder of the first quarter. Two Connersville steals in the final minute propelled them to the 12-4 lead after the opening eight minutes.
A Kylee Beranek 3-pointer and a Natalie Sevier layup in the opening minutes of the second quarter cut the Spartans lead down to three, but again the Spartans closed out the quarter strong.
An Ahniyah Bennett 3 pushed the Connersville lead to 20-9, and a Hailey Sembach basket capped off a 10-0 Spartans run to close out the half.
“Their zone gave us some problems in the beginning. We just have to knock down some shots. We got shots we wanted, just couldn’t get them to go,” Moore said. “I think we did a good job of executing. We’ve only had 13 practices and haven’t been able to get everything in that we want to, so we’ll look at that and be ready because we’re going to see some more zone.”
A Blum 3-pointer and a Beranek layup out of the break brought the Dragons back within eight, but just like the first two quarters, it was the Spartans closing the quarter out strong, scoring the final five points to maintain a 13-point lead entering the final period.
Blum’s third deep ball of the night and a steal and layup to open the fourth quarter got those five points back for the Dragons quickly, and a full-court press began to cause issues for the Spartans offense.
A Beranek steal off of the press and assist to Sevier brought New Palestine within six with just over three minutes remaining, and while the press continued to cause havoc, a young Dragons roster kept turning the ball right back over to the Spartans.
The Dragons forced 20 turnovers on the night, and had 12 steals, but made 18 mistakes of their own.
“We’re an athletic team. We just have to work on what we want to do when we do get a turnover with our press,” Moore said. “We threw the ball away after we got steals and we just can’t be doing that. We just got in a hurry and got sped up.”
A Kendra Moore layup got the Dragons back within six in the final two minutes, but the lead was too much, and the Spartans knocked down six final-quarter free throws to seal the victory.
Blum led the Dragons with 11 points, Sevier added seven points and six rebounds, Beranek had five points, two rebounds, and two assists, and Sadey Hughbanks tallied three points and three rebounds.
New Palestine is back in action Saturday at 5 p.m. on the road at Batesville.
–
Connersville 35, New Palestine 28
Connersville;12;10;5;8;—;35
New Palestine;4;5;5;14;—;28
Connersville (1-0): Hailey Sembach 4 4-7 12, Addison Jones 2 1-2 7, Jacey Willhelm 1 1-2 3, Ahniyah Bennett 3 1-4 9, McKenna Lucas 1 0-0 2, Serenity Pennington 1 0-1 2, Taylor Watkins 0 0-0 0. Totals: 12 7-16 35.
New Palestine (0-1): Allie Blum 4 0-4 11, Sadey Hughbanks 1 1-2 3, Kylee Beranek 2 0-0 5, Kendra Moore 1 0-0 2, Natalie Sevier 3 1-2 7, Ella Holman 0 0-0 0, Kenna Tweedy 0 0-0 0, Ally White 0 0-0 0. Totals: 11 2-8 28.
3-point goals: Connersville 4 (Jones 2, Bennett 2); New Palestine 4 (Blum 3, Beranek 1)
