HTC girls fall in OT to West Burlington

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - The West Burlington Lady Falcons have a curse on the Holy Trinity girls basketball team.

In the past two years, the Crusaders have held leads in the fourth quarter in each game the two teams have faced each other and somehow, the Falcons find a way to get a win. Tuesday night was no different as HTC held a 49-47 lead with :35 left on the clock in regulation.

A Holy Trinity turnover with :23 seconds left in regulation set the Falcons up with the ball and Head Coach John Vandenberg called a time out to set up a final play where they worked the ball into Alexis Davis, who got a step on the HTC defense outside the lane and slid in for short jumper to tie it at 49 and force overtime.

After each team committed a turnover in the opening seconds of the four-minute extra session, Eryn Anderson was fouled by sophomore Leah Collier. Anderson made the front end but missed the bonus to give HTC a one-point lead.

In the next possession for the Falcons after West Burlington set up in the half-court, the ball rotated over to sophomore Natalie Vandenberg, who laced a 3-ball from the left wing as HTC's Ashlynn Haas flew over to try and get hand in her face. The bucket would give the Falcons a lead they wouldn't give up.

After Vandenberg's score, HTC would commit three turnovers in a row trying to get the ball past the West Burlington trapping press, but the Falcons couldn't get a bucket in transition off the turnovers or in the set offense. With 1:15 left after a tie-up that gave the ball back to West Burlington, Mya Lawlor fouled West Burlington's Iliyah Moore. Moore, and the Falcons, struggled at the free throw line in Friday's home loss to Danville, shooting just 11 of 24. Moore was just 2 of 7 Friday, but would connect on 3-of-4 on back-to-back possessions to give West Burlington a 55-50 lead.

Vandenberg would then commit a foul on Haas as she was bringing the ball through the press and Haas sank both with :31 second remaining. Senior Lexy Davis would score from the left side when she leaked behind Holy Trinity's 1/2 court press and took a long inbounds pass in for a bucket to put the lead back at five. HTC senior Emily Box, who finished with a game high 22 points, scored underneath on the next trip down for the Crusaders to cut the lead back to three 54-57.

HTC's Haas would foul Moore again to stop the clock with about six second remaining. Moore missed the first off the right side and the second off the left. The Falcons picked up the rebound off the second free throw, but Haas came up with a timely steal and raced down the floor kicking the ball off to Taylor Boeding who threw up a shot from about 21 feet that missed off the right side of the glass as time expired.

Head Coach Tony Johnson said turnovers were the key to the game.

"You can't commit 40-45 turnovers in a game and expect to win," he said afterwards. "But we've got another game on Friday and then we get a couple weeks to get in and clean some of this stuff up."

Box was able to score almost at will in the first half converting six from inside the paint as she pretty much always had a step on the West Burlington's defense for inside points. Vandenberg made some adjustments and held Box to just three in the third quarter as the two teams stayed within three points of each other the whole second half, with the exception of the overtime period.

"When you run that 1-3-1, in theory you should always be able to get the ball inside. That was working early on, but then it seemed like nothing we were doing worked. We've got a lot of work to do."

Box led all scorers with 22 points followed by Haas with 11, Boeding had 10 and Anderson had nine. Lawlor had two points to round out the scoring for the Crusaders.

The 5-4 Crusaders travel to Cardinal of Eldon in a Friday night boys/girls double header to wrap up the first half of the season heading into the holiday break.

 

basketball, Emily Box, fort madison, girls, htc, Pen City Current, Tony Johnson, West Burlington

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