It’s strange to say that a team with a 20-7 record has hit some bumps in the road.
The Presbyterian Christian girls’ basketball team has been on a quest for redemption since losing the MAIS Overall State title last season. The Lady Bobcats got back on track with a 39-27 win over Jackson Academy on Tuesday night, pushing them to a three-way tie for second place in the district standings.
“We had dropped to fourth place after a loss to Jackson Prep last week,” PCS coach Drew Smith said. “We needed this one from a lot of standpoints: confidence, standings and to get us feeling better about ourselves.
“I thought defensively we were solid. We still made some mistakes. Offensively, we are still kind of sputtering, but you have to give JA a little bit of credit on that, too. We still have to do some things better on that end, too.”
Although PCS is still in the process of meeting its goals, there are two key differences compared to this time last year. The first is that leading scorer Addyson Sherer is recovering from injuries to both of her ankles. Sherer, who averages 20 points per game, was held to just eight points against the Lady Raiders.
“She’s coming off an ankle injury still,” Smith said. “In fact, it was both ankles. She’s still a step slow. She’s sputtering a little bit, but she’s slowly getting back into it.”
The second reason is that the Lady Bobcats are significantly different compared to last year, with Sherer being the team’s only senior in the starting lineup.
“What it boils down to is that it’s hard to replace three seniors from last year,” Smith said. “They were really good, and they knew what we were doing offensively and defensively. They were a lot more mature. If you look at the starting lineup tonight, I had one senior and two ninth graders starting. If you factor that in and the fact that we have a lot of inexperience still, we are building to that.”
Yet it was underclassmen that sealed PCS’ win against Jackson Academy (13-11, 3-2). The game stayed low-scoring and narrow, and the Lady Bobcats’ spark didn’t come until the final seconds of the second quarter. Freshman Jules Sherer hit a fadeaway jump shot to give PCS (20-7, 3-2) a 15-12 lead at the half.
“We saw something there,” Smith said. “Jules, who is a ninth grader, did a good job of coming off and curling that and taking what the defense gave her, which was a mid-range jump shot. It was a big shot because it got us going in the right direction.”
The shot proved to be the spark for the Lady Bobcats, who went on a 9-0 run to break the game open in the third quarter and take a 27-17 lead.
“I think we found something that was working,” Smith said. “That was getting to the rim and spacing the floor because they were pressuring so much.
“It gave us some trouble, but in the second half, you saw us getting to the rim a lot more and getting to the free throw line. We didn’t make our free throws like we normally do, but if we make half of the free throws we normally make, then it goes from a 12-point game to a 20-point game.”
Leading the dominant second half were freshman Anna Kate Woodward and sophomore Karly Hunter. Woodward scored all 10 of her team-leading points in the second half, while Hunter posted nine points.
“Anna Kate is a freshman that is starting to come into her own,” Smith said. “She’s getting a lot more aggressive. In the first half of the year, she was very tentative and timid, but she’s starting to take ownership of the team. Then Karley is just trying to figure out how to play defense at that level and run the offenses that we have. She brings the rebounding, and that’s been huge for us.”
Although PCS’ youth soundly held its own, with the Lady Bobcats not allowing JA to score in double digits in any quarter, it went 13 of 28 from the free throw line.
“To me, that’s an experience thing, and knowing how to handle pressure is key,” Smith said. “With the teams that we play in our league you can’t afford to make mistakes because they are too well coached and talented.”
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