By ANDREW FEEBACK
Early on, the Bluffton Tigers’ basketball team didn’t show many signs of having not played in more than a week.
They took a 10-3 lead over the visiting Bellmont Braves in the first four minutes and were getting good looks at the basket.
Then, it got ugly in a hurry.
“We started throwing the ball right to them,” Bluffton head coach Doug Curtis said. “We knew they were going to do exactly the press that they did. I thought we did a decent job early of handling it. The key was, they were missing shots, and we were getting rebounds and not having to face their press. Then, they made a couple of baskets and got to set their press up, and we turned the ball over right away.”
Bluffton dropped its second straight game and now stands at 12-3, while Bellmont upped its record to 11-3.
The Tigers made only three shots beyond the arc in this game, all of them coming in the first quarter. The last one came from Madyson Sonnigsen and gave Bluffton a 13-8 lead.
The Braves made only two shots from the field in the first quarter, but got to the free throw line eight times, and making those free throws allowed them to set up their press.
Bluffton held a 17-10 lead after buckets from Isabella Stout and Haley Gibson.
That was all the Tigers managed for the rest of the first half, as the Braves repeatedly forced them into the corners and double-teamed the ball. With 14 turnovers in the first half, the Tigers suddenly found themselves trailing 23-17 at the break.
It didn’t get much better for Bluffton in the second half, as the Tigers failed to score again until Maryn Schreiber’s rebound basket ended a scoreless stretch of more than nine minutes.
Although the Tigers were never really out of it, that was far too long without a point in a low-scoring, low-possession game such as this one.
It didn’t feel like it, but the Tigers outscored the Braves by a point in the third quarter and stayed within two possessions for much of the fourth. It was 34-28 after Stout’s short jumper with 3:05 to play, but Bluffton failed to score again after that.
The Tigers finished with a season-worst 24 turnovers.
“The good thing is that’s Game 15, and that’s the first team that’s made us turn the ball over like that,” Curtis said. “We had four days off from basketball, and that obviously didn’t help us at this point. Every time you scrimmage in practice, you’ve got to take care of the basketball and not make those type of turnovers. We’ve got to do a better job of that.”
Gibson was the only Tiger in double figures with 13, while the Braves got 13 from Hailey Cole and 10 from Emily Bleke.
Bluffton will travel to North Miami Wednesday night.
The JV game went to Bellmont, 34-31. For the Tigers, Isla Gibson scored 17 points and Shak Eskridge added eight, while Madelyn Funk and Addison Kauffman both had three.
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BELLMONT 38,
BLUFFTON 28
At Bluffton
BELLMONT (11-3): Kate Kitson 0-0 0-0 0, Lillian Garner 0-0 0-0 0, Ella Franze 0-0 0-0 0, Emily Bleke 5-11 0-0 10, Belle Laurent 2-5 2-2 7, Kamryn Jarvis 1-5 2-4 4, Lanie French 0-1 0-0 0, Brianna Converset 0-0 0-0 0, Gwen Laurent 2-6 0-0 4, Hailey Cole 4-12 5-6 13. TOTALS: 14-40 9-12 38.
BLUFFTON (12-3): Isabella Stout 2-7 0-0 4, Konley Ault 0-0 0-0 0, Marly Drayer 1-3 0-0 3, Maryn Schreiber 2-5 0-0 4, Haley Gibson 6-11 0-0 13, Tressa Renner 0-0 1-2 1, Madyson Sonnigsen 1-2 0-0 3, Cayah King 0-0 0-0 0, Sophie Eisenhut 0-2 0-0 0. TOTALS: 12-30 1-2 28.
Bellmont 10 13 5 10 — 38
Bluffton 13 4 6 5 — 28
Three-point Field Goals: Bellmont 1-10 (Belle Laurent 1-2, Cole 0-3, Bleke 0-3, French 0-1, Jarvis 0-1), Bluffton 3-9 (Sonnigsen 1-2, Drayer 1-2, Gibson 1-3, Stout 0-2). Rebounds: Bellmont 17 (Bleke 6, Jarvis 4, Cole 3, Gwen Laurent 2, Kitson 1, Belle Laurent 1), Bluffton 19 (Schreiber 6, Stout 5, Drayer 4, Sonnigsen 2, Eisenhut 1, Gibson 1). Turnovers: Bellmont 14, Bluffton 24. Fouls: Bellmont 8, Bluffton 12. Fouled out: None. Technicals: None.
JV: Bellmont 34, Bluffton 31.
