Lady ‘Dogs defense suffocates Mustangs

Lady ‘Dogs defense suffocates Mustangs

Earle held Buffalo Island Central to only six made field goals and completely scores through the first 12: 30 of the contest

sports@theeveningtimes.com

If the Earle was bothered at all from a lack of practice and the rescheduling of multiple games due to last week’s snow and ice storm, it was unnoticeable as the Lady Bulldogs (173) suffocated Buffalo Island Central in a 62-19 blowout.

Earle won the first quarter 18-0 and built a 30-0 lead before the Mustangs (8-10) scored their first point on a free throw at the 4:20 mark of the second stanza.

The Lady Bulldogs limited the Buffalo Island Central girls to only two made field goals in the first half as Earle strode into the locker rooms with a 36-10 advantage at the break. The Lady Bulldogs forced 17 Mustangs turnovers into the first two frames, leading to a pleased head coach Corey Garrett.

“Defensively, I was happy,” Garrett said. “I wasn’t happy with their shooting tonight, but I was with their defense. Play good defense and that’ll make up for some other stuff, if you have a bad night offensively. But, I was happy with everybody. We got to do a better job shooting the ball, but we did a good job defensively.”

One player who had no problem offensively for the Lady Bulldogs was RoShala Scott as the Earle junior once again led her team at the rim by pumping in 21 points while shooting 60 percent from the field and knocking down three treys. Scott also snagged 10 rebounds in her double-double performance while dishing out 4 assists and swatting away 2 blocks.

In fact, Scott scored over half of her team’s first quarter points, pushing through 10 points in the first stanza, including a three to open the scoring, followed by a free-throw line jumper to give the Lady Bulldogs captain 5 points within the first minute of the contest.

Garrett says he has come to expect nothing less from Scott.

“That’s what I expect out of her,” Garrett said. “I expect that type of performance out of her and more because she can do more. So, the expectations are high… I have high expectations of her. I have high expectations of all the girls. I know what they can do. They know what they can do and that’s what I expect. I expect them to perform to their abilities.

Anything less, I’m not happy with it.”

Garrett wasn’t as happy with the offensive production from the rest of the Lady Bulldogs, however.

Though Earle finished with four players scoring in double figures, as a team the Lady Bulldogs shot just 42 percent from the field and just 26 percent from behind the arc. The head coach says that a lack of practice last week may have affected the girls shooting but that their defensive effort made up for any woes from the field.

“Defensively, I wasn’t surprised because you can bring defense every night,” Garrett said. “The shooting wasn’t there tonight as it has been in some games, but defensively we were on point tonight.”

By the end of the contest, that Earle defense caused a total of 26 Mustang turnovers, including 15 Lady Bulldogs steals, and scored exactly half of their 62 total points from Buffalo Island Central giveaways.

The defensive domination was a goal for Garrett and the Lady Bulldogs heading into this game, according to the head coach. Garrett says he looks for ways to continuously push his girls, setting small goals in each game, and holding Buffalo Island Central under the 34-point threshold which Earle allowed in a 61-34 victory over the Mustangs just four-days prior was a goal last Friday.

“You know, we set goals each game with what we’re trying to do defensively, points we’re trying to hold the other team to and field goal percentage,” Garrett said. “Practically, if we play a team one game and give up a certain amount of points, we want to cut something off that in the next game. I think last time we played them we gave up 30. The goal this time was to hold them to 20. That’s what we talked about, playing food defense without fouling, keeping them off the free throw line. The key is defense. The girls understand that.”

To Garrett’s point, Earle held Buffalo Island Central to a lowly 23 percent shooting from the field on just 6-of-26 shots.

And, it’s that kind of defensive effort that Earle will have to show throughout the rest of the season and into the playoffs if the Lady Bulldogs wish to bring a state championship back to Earle, which is a season goal that Garrett was very clear about.

“You’re always looking for ways to get better because we will have to get better in order to do what we want to do and that’s to make it to Hot Springs and be state champions,” Garrett said.

“Anything less than being state champions, we don’t consider a successful season. That is the goal.

That’s the standard that we’ve set here. State championship.”

Earle sophomore Elaijha Brown pumped in 12 points in the win while snagging 7 rebounds while junior Kelsey Moore pushed through 10 points and hauled in 5 rebounds and sophomore T’asja Hughey chipped in 10 points and 4 rebounds.

Overall, the Lady Bulldogs outrebounded the Mustangs 35-22, including 19 offensive rebounds for Earle.

Earle looks to carry it’s winning momentum on the road with them this Tuesday as the Lady Bulldogs travel to East Poinsett County to face the Warriors (7-12) for a 6:00 p.m. tip-off.

By Collins Peeples