DAILY JOURNAL SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
BROWNSBURG
Junior guard Holly Hoopingarner turned in a another exceptional game for the Greenwood Community High School girls basketball team.
It just wasn’t enough to offset Brownsburg’s hot start and balanced attack.
Hoopingarner scored 29 points in the visiting Woodmen’s 59-53 loss to Brownsburg on Tuesday night in nonconference action. The 5-foot-4 Hoopingarner sank 10 of 16 shots and 8 of 9 free throws.
“Holly played a great game,” Greenwood coach Debbie Guckenberger said.
Brownsburg (8-4) has won six in a row after a four-game losing streak. The Woodmen’s record dropped to 5-8.
Brownsburg scored the game’s first seven points and never trailed. The Bulldogs led 13-2 before the Woodmen closed the deficit to 17-12 at the end of the first quarter.
“They were on fire the first quarter,” Guckenberger said. “They just couldn’t miss from outside and inside.”
The Bulldogs expanded the lead to 32-22 at halftime. Hoopingarner scored 16 of the Woodmen’s 22 points.
Greenwood pulled within 38-35 after a basket by Hoopingarner in the third quarter, but the Bulldogs pushed the lead to 47-40 after three quarters.
“We did a nice job of battling back and putting ourselves in
position but we just couldn’t knock down shots when we needed to
in the fourth quarter,” Guckenberger said.
Bulldogs junior Zhane Roper hit two free throws with 45.8 seconds left to build the lead to 59-53.
“I think rebounds really hard us,” Guckenberger said. “Their strength is their post players and that’s what we really focused on and we held their post players down.”
However, sophomore Reilly Olmstead and Roper each scored 14 points for the Bulldogs.
Greenwood committed just eight turnovers compared to 14 for Brownsburg.
“We did a great job possessing the basketball (Tuesday night),” Guckenberger said. “I feel like we handled their press well and we did a good job of attacking. We needed to attack earlier in the first half. We got to the free throw line a lot more in the second half.”
Freshman Leah Moore was second on the Woodmen in scoring with eight points.
The Woodmen host North Central on Friday night.
