Fourth quarter gives Tiger girls some reason for optimism

• Jordan Van Dyk drives to the basket

Junior Jordan Van Dyk (22) drives to the basket during the loss to Barron last week. Photo by Dave Newman

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The New Richmond girls basketball team is holding onto the thought that they can consistently be the team that scored 17 points in the fourth quarter against Barron last Monday night.

That is largely because the Tigers don’t ever want to revert back to the team that played the first three quarters against Barron. Even with the strong fourth quarter, the Tigers lost to Barron, 39-30, in the non-conference game.

The Tigers have one of the longest breaks between games of any team in the area. Tiger coach Jeff Kanewischer plans to put those numerous practices to good use. Shooting accuracy and movement in the offensive zone are two of the biggest problems for the Tigers. The Tigers were held without a point for most of the first quarter against Barron.

The lack of shooting success has been eroding the Tigers’ confidence in their shooting. Against Barron the Tigers passed up a number of close-range shots. Instead, they tried to pass the ball back out to the perimeter through traffic. Instead of getting points off these good opportunities, most of those passes resulted in turnovers.

In the fourth quarter the Tigers finally got some positive offensive flow working. Senior guard McKenzie Kelly led the charge, scoring eight points in the fourth quarter. Kendra Mitchell scored all eight of her points in the second half.

Kanewischer said the team’s inexperience still shows, though he hopes he won’t need to justify that much longer.

“The mechanics of our offense are there. We are getting opportunities. Now we have to get our confidence up and take advantage of those opportunities,” he said.

The one constant through Monday’s game for the Tigers was a solid effort in the defensive end. After making a few adjustments early, the Tigers were able to cut off Barron’s attempted drives to the basket. The strong defensive effort was somewhat offset by a lackluster rebounding effort by the Tigers. Often only one or two Tigers were going for rebounds. That gave Barron frequent offensive rebounds and easy putback points.

The next time the Tigers will compete will be on Thursday, Jan. 8, when they play a home game against Prescott.

Tags: sports, girls, basketball, jordan, van, dyk