By RICK SPRUNGER
Bluffton’s Lady Tigers turned it up a notch on defense Tuesday night against visiting Northfield, and the end result was an easy 56-33 win over the Lady Norse in a non-conference girls’ basketball game.
Bluffton improved to 7-6 with the win; Northfield fell to 4-8 with the loss.
“We had hoped coming in that we could pressure them and turn them over and get out into transition,” smiled Bluffton coach Chad Mounsey after the game.
Bluffton’s high-pressure defense really came to the forefront in a 17-3 second-half run during which the Tigers turned seven Northfield ballhandling errors into five runout layups, four of them coming on successive possessions.
But it took a Bluffton timeout for Mounsey to remind his team to stay aggressive.
The Tigers had missed their first six shots of the second half and had watched Northfield claw its way back from a 29-16 halftime deficit to within 29-21.
“We needed to remind them of our second-half plan to come out with fire and energy,” said Mounsey of his one-minute strategy session. “They had missed a couple of easy bunnies, and it got into their heads. But we told them that while not every shot is going to fall, you can always work hard. They needed to be tough and move their feet on defense without fouling.”
They got the message.
Maryn Schreiber scored underneath to stop the bleeding, and then the Tigers picked off four straight passes.
The first two turned into fast-break points, with Schreiber converting at the other end; the last two were easy, one-on-nothing layups by Haley Gibson and Isabella Stout.
A Camryn Kuhn three-pointer stemmed the tide a bit for Northfield.
But three more Norse turnovers resulted in another seven Bluffton points, the last two on yet another breakaway layup by Konley Ault, and the Tigers had a 46-24 lead.
If there was one thing that Mounsey was less than pleased with, it was that his team only shot three free throws all night.
Granted, they hit all three.
But Mounsey would like to have seen his players at the stripe a little more often.
He acknowledged that some of that was because of all the easy layups his team was getting.
But, he added, some of it was also due to his team not working the middle hard enough in a half-court offense.
“We would get it inside and then would sort of back away a little,” he explained.
“When you’re not being tough and taking it to the basket strong, (the officials) are not going to bail you out with a cheap foul. The energy and intensity haven’t been there in practice. Some of that is because we’re coming out of Christmas break. And some of it may be because we are really young. But we’re halfway through the season, and it’s time we got moving.”
Gibson led all scorers with 19 points for Bluffton, 11 of them coming in the first quarter.
But she picked up three early fouls and had to sit down.
Schreiber joined her in double figures with 16 points.
Northfield was led by Hannah Holmes with 14 points and Elli Baker with 11.
There was no junior varsity game due to Northfield only having eight girls out for basketball this year.
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BLUFFTON 56, NORTHFIELD 33
at Northfield High School
NORTHFIELD (4-8): Elli Baker 4 2-2 11, Camryn Kuhn 1 0-0 3, Callie Hoffman 2 3-4 7, Kirsten Rife 0 0-0 0, Hannah Holmes 4 6-11 14, Samantha Powell 0 0-0 0, Zarla Dunn 0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 11 11-17 33.
BLUFFTON (7-6): Isabella Stout 2 0-0 4, Marly Drayer 1 0-0 2, Maryn Schreiber 8 0-0 16, Haley Gibson 8 2-2 19, Tressa Renner 2 1-1 5, Lily King 2 0-0 4, Konley Ault 3 0-0 6, Kennedy Nash 0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 26 3-3 56.
Northfield 7 9 8 9 — 33
Bluffton 15 14 12 15 — 56
