Scoring slump continues for Woodmen

INDIANAPOLIS — Once again, scoring turned out to be a problem for the Greenwood girls basketball team Tuesday night.

Southport didn’t have as much of a problem and took a 56-39 win against the visiting Woodmen.

“Scoring has been the whole issue this year,” said Greenwood coach Lee Taft. “We go anemic at times, and we have played against some pretty good shooting teams.”

The Woodmen have averaged only 40 points a game — and they haven’t even hit that mark now for four games.

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But it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Defensively, the Woodmen played a very sound game, committing few mistakes. Offensively, the Cardinals actually had more turnovers than the Woodmen.

And when the Woodmen did shoot, they did all right, especially from the 3-point line.

Trouble was, they didn’t shoot often enough, and Southport’s size eventually kept the Woodmen from hitting baskets.

Taft used the zone defense to try and counter Southport’s height advantage, specifically that of the Cardinals’ 6-3 senior, Jaelencia Williams.

While they didn’t stop Williams at every turn, the Woodmen did make life difficult, and Williams had to fight for every ball and point.

While all eyes were glued on Williams, Greenwood forgot about Emma DeHart, and the Southport senior was trouble for the Woodmen, hitting two 3-pointers on the way to 14 points by halftime.

“We knew they had some good shooters and they had enough of them to spread around,” said Taft. “We did a good job, but we just couldn’t score at the right time.”

Greenwood was able to close the gap to 10 points, but that was the closest they could get before going the final two minutes without a score.

Just one more basket and the Woodmen would have broken 40.

They did get some good news, with three players scoring in double figures. Junior Leah Moore led the way with 11 points, while sophomore Alex Kincaid and senior Taylor Walker added 10 each.

Williams and DeHart led all scorers with 21 points apiece.

It was the 13th straight loss for Greenwood, and it also stopped the Woodmen’s five-game winning streak against Southport, one that had gone back to January 2011.

Greenwood still has two more games, both at home, to finish off the regular season. On Thursday, the Woodmen host Mid-State Conference rival Decatur Central.