DAILY JOURNAL SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
GREENSBURG
The Edinburgh girls basketball team’s season-long plague of turnovers abated somewhat Thursday night.
But the Lancers were afflicted instead by cold shooting, which proved to be their undoing in a 59-39 loss at North Decatur.
The Lancers shot less than 20 percent from the field through three quarters before rallying somewhat in the final eight minutes against some of North Decatur’s subs. The final field-goal percentage was 31 percent (15 for 52).
“I think we hurried a lot of shots. We didn’t get set a lot of the time, and it showed,” Lancers’ coach Amy Macy said. “I think it got better later in the game, but by then we were way behind.”
Macy emphasized the team still is in a learning process and said she believes the group has the talent to produce good results.
Edinburgh was strong defensively and on the boards, forcing 20 North Decatur turnovers and outrebounding the Chargers 32-31. But offensive execution struggles meant 21 turnovers for Edinburgh, plus the poor shooting.
Allie Schooler led the Lancers with 16 points and shared the team lead in rebounds with Mariah Weddle with eight.
Jessica Banaschak scored a game-high 27 for North Decatur. Freshman Sarah Bowman chipped with 10 points.
The Lancers were struck again by the turnover bug in the first quarter, giving the ball away nine times in the opening eight minutes as North Decatur raced to 18-7 lead.
In the first half, Macy substituted a player out nearly every time they committed a turnover, meaning the five players on the floor for the Lancers was changing nearly every 30 seconds. Things went from bad to worse when Weddle had to leave the game in the second quarter with a possible concussion, and the Lancers slumped to a 27-9 halftime deficit.
Macy said the substitutions were meant to send a message to the team.
“We told them we were going to do that,” Macy said. “I told them at halftime to think about how often they were going in and out. They just have to understand we have to take better care of the basketball. That’s the message I was trying to send.
“This team always works hard. You saw them keep fighting in the final quarter, but there are still a lot of things they have to learn about playing basketball.
Edinburgh (1-16) travels to Waldron on Tuesday for a Mid-Hoosier Conference game.
