(January 9th, 2015) – PETTISVILLE: After suffering their first loss of the season to Archbold, some may have wondered how the Lady Blackbirds would respond. The answer turned out to be incredibly well, as the Pettisville girls took down the Lady Panthers of Stryker 39-20.
The Panther’s began the game by keeping pace with their hosts. They trailed Pettisville 9-5 by the end of the first stanza. The Lady Blackbirds started to pull away in the second quarter, however. Winning the period 10-3, Pettisville enjoyed a 19-8 advantage at the half.
Coming out of the locker room, Pettisville was ready for action. Holding the Panthers to 4 points, the Blackbirds posted 15 points of their own in the third quarter. Down 22 points, the girls of Stryker found themselves in a difficult situation as the fourth and final quarter began. The Lady Panthers outscored Pettisville 8-5 in the period, but that didn’t make up near enough ground to get them back into the game.
Jason Waldvogel, Head Coach of the Pettisville girls, was happy with the victory.
“It was a nice win over a well-coached team.”
The winning formula for Pettisville still begins with defense. The Blackbird girls allowed Styker to make just 5 field goals in the contest. With 17 attempts on the evening, that put the Lady Panthers at 29% shooting from the floor. It was this level of defensive intensity that held the Stryker girls to single digit scoring in each of the game’s four periods.
Scoring was balanced for Pettisville. In fact, seven players contributed to the Blackbird point total. Neither this, nor the team’s defensive efforts, were lost on Waldvogel.
“I thought we had several different people step up on both ends of the floor.”
Jordyn Pursel was one of those people to step up. Normally a defensive specialist, Pursel led the Blackbird squad with 10 points, most of which came from within the paint. Teammate Mikala Avina offered 9 more points to the victory effort, while both Dana Fricke and Alexa Leppelmeier added 6 more points apiece.
For Stryker, Taylor Haines put up a team-leading 7 points in the loss. Fellow Panther Haley Doehrmann contributed 5 more points to the Stryker cause as well. Paige Speelman knocked down the team’s only three-point shot for her only scoring of the contest.
The rebounding margin was a close battle. Pettisville edged out the Panthers, gathering 32 boards to Stryker’s 28. With Stryker’s inexperience, this statistic was a bit of a surprise.
What wasn’t surprising however, were the amount of turnovers each unit committed in the game. A veteran squad, Pettisville limited their turnovers to 12. The young girls of Stryker were a little more careless with the ball, though. They turned the ball over 23 times.
Even with the wide margin of defeat, there was a lot of things Stryker did well in this game. The Lady Panthers will continue to grow throughout the season, and contests like this one become less and less frequent.