By ANDREW FEEBACK
FAIRMOUNT — Defense led to offense for the Bluffton Tiger basketball team Saturday night.
Bluffton’s Marly Drayer leads the pack on a breakaway layup following a turnover by Madison-Grant Saturday night at Fairmount. (Photo by Glen Werling)
By forcing the host Madison-Grant Argylls into 34 turnovers, the Tigers cruised to a 74-27 route for their fourth win in as many games.
Bluffton scored 12 straight to take an early 17-5 lead. Madison-Grant closed the first quarter with back-to-back three-pointers from Caydence Campbell and Katie Stowers to cut the lead in half.
“We didn’t start out defensively doing what we wanted to do,” Bluffton head coach Doug Curtis said. “I told them what Madison-Grant’s score Friday night was; they got beat 27 to 11. With the way we play defense, our guards have to run our forwards off to get our matchups. We were missing some of those matchups there.”
After that, the Tigers put the clamps down defensively, holding the Argylls (2-3) to 16 points over the remaining three frames.
“We played a lot of different defenses today,” Curtis said. “Most of the time, we just play two defenses, and today we played five. We were trying to keep them off balance; we got a bit of a lead, and I think that paid off for the next three quarters.”
Bluffton took control with a 15-2 run on its way to a 28-point second quarter and had the game well in hand by halftime.
The Argylls had 21 turnovers by the break, and that number continued to rise as the Tigers scored the first eight points of the second half.
Many of the Madison-Grant miscues were live-ball turnovers, which allowed Bluffton opportunities for quick transition buckets. Bluffton finished with only nine turnovers, and managed to put up 78 shot attempts overall.
Even though the Tigers made only 33 of those, that was still three more field goals than the Argylls even attempted.
“We’re always trying to create those runout and transition opportunities,” Curtis said. “Everything we’re doing defensively is trying to create those, trying to get ourselves as many easy baskets as we can. Obviously, when you have to play the half-court offense, you play the half-court offense. I thought defensively, we gave ourselves a lot of opportunities. We didn’t take advantage of all of them, but we gave ourselves a lot of opportunities to get easy baskets.”
The Tigers scored the game’s final 13 points and kept the Argylls off the board entirely for the last six minutes.
It was the third time in just four games Bluffton eclipsed the 60-point mark, something that occurred only twice last season.
Maryn Schreiber and Isabella Stout both scored 16 points to lead the Tigers. Konley Ault added 11 and Madyson Sonnigsen had 10.
For the Argylls, Stowers had nine, and Maddy Moore scored seven.
Bluffton took the JV game 49-15. Sophie Eisenhut led the reserves with 15 points. Madelyn Funk added nine and Shakyriana Eskridge scored five.
Bluffton will travel to New Haven on Tuesday night.
sports@news-banner.com
BLUFFTON 74,
MADISON-GRANT 27
At Madison-Grant
BLUFFTON (4-0): Isabella Stout 7-12 2-4 16, Konley Ault 5-10 1-2 11, Marly Drayer 3-11 1-1 7, Maryn Schreiber 8-17 0-0 16, Haley Gibson 3-11 1-2 8, Tressa Renner 0-2 0-0 0, Madyson Sonnigsen 4-8 0-0 10, Cayah King 0-2 0-0 0, Sophie Eisenhut 3-5 0-2 6, Shakyriana Eskridge 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 33-78 5-11 74.
MADISON-GRANT (2-3): Maddy Moore 3-5 0-0 7, AJ Hayes 0-0 0-0 0, Maddy Holloway 1-2 0-0 2, Katie Stowers 3-8 0-0 9, Jasmyn Rainey 0-1 0-2 0, Carley Holliday 0-3 1-2 1, Marlie Nieman 0-0 0-0 0, Caydence Campbell 2-6 1-2 6, Dannika Horn 0-1 0-0 0, Camryn Bolser 1-4 0-2 2. TOTALS: 10-30 2-8 27.
Bluffton 17 28 14 15 — 74
Madison-Grant 11 7 7 2 — 27
Three-point Goals: Bluffton 3-18 (Sonnigsen 2-4, Gibson 1-7, Drayer 0-5, Ault 0-1, Renner 0-1), Madison-Grant 5-13 (Stowers 3-5, Moore 1-3, Campbell 1-2, Rainey 0-1, Horn 0-1, Holloway 0-1). Rebounds: Bluffton 37 (Schreiber 16, Stout 6, Sonnigsen 4, Ault 3, Gibson 2, Drayer 2, Renner 1, Eskridge 1, Eisenhut 1, King 1), Madison-Grant 15 (Holliday 4, Bolser 3, Moore 3, Holloway 2, Campbell 2, Stowers 1). Turnovers: Bluffton 9, Madison-Grant 34. Fouls: Bluffton 11, Madison-Grant 6. Fouled out: None. Technicals: None.
JV: Bluffton 49, Madison-Grant 15.
