FORT MADISON – The pace of play in Tuesday’s 73-63 loss to Washington was evidence that the Fort Madison Bloodhounds have some work to do over the coming holiday break.
The Hounds still have a game Thursday in Mt. Vernon, but if the look on Hounds' faces exiting the lockerroom after Tuesday’s loss was any indication, there’s a hill to climb.
One by one, or two, the Hounds left the locker room with an obvious frustration of what transpired over the final 10 minutes, and the post-game conversation with Head Coach Ryan Wilson.
“When we stepped on the floor, we weren’t ready to play. You saw that in the first quarter. We weren’t rebounding, and they were all over the ball on the offensive glass. They were all over the ball anywhere the ball was. We just didn’t come out ready to go,” Wilson said.
“Then to just play catch up and play catch up. We mixed up our defenses a bit, but we didn’t play good defense. You score 63 points in a high school basketball game, you should have a shot to win and we didn’t have a shot tonight.”
The Hounds hung with the sneaky good Demons through the first three periods but trailed by as much as seven with four minutes left in the game. The Demons, whose offense is built around rapid fire passing on the perimeter to free up shooters and open lanes, dominated the bigger Bloodhounds on the glass throughout the first half. It wasn’t until Fort Madison got down by seven in the third that that dynamic changed, albeit temporarily.
Down 7, Carson Rashid tried to score attacking the basket but missed and Hunter Cresswell came up with the board, missed the put back, came up with the rebound again and scored, igniting the crowd and the Hounds’ offense.
A defensive stop set the tone for another strong possession for the Hounds with junior Dayton Lamar scoring inside off a nice assist from Cresswell. Lamar was fouled on the play and converted the freethrow to make it a 2-point game at 41-39.
Washington’s Logan McDole would miss at the other end and Fort Madison would have a chance to tie the game, but Lamar missed two shots under the basket, getting his own rebound after the miss.
Freshman Nic Stone would hit a 3-ball in front of the Demon bench to stretch the lead to 44-39. The bucket prompted a Washington :30 second timeout where Wilson said he charged the Hounds with finding their energy.
Fort Madison went to work out of the timeout through the rest of the third period pulling down four offensive rebounds with Cresswell working inside and out. He would score on an errant Julian Dear 3-ball gobbling up two boards in the process, and then would score from deep off the left wing to tie the game at 46 with :40 left in the period.
Jan De Gracia Hernandez would put up a bucket off another Cresswell assist on the next possession for a 2-point Bloodhound lead, but Stone would answer with a three near the horn for a 49-48 Demon lead headed into the final period.
Washington would capitalize on the lead and go 8-10 from the field in the final period with three consecutive 3-balls, two from Stone to move the lead back to 8, despite five points from Fort Madison Nolan Guzman. His 3-pointer with six minutes left gave the Hounds a brief 55-53 lead before Washington went on an 18-8 run to put the game away.
“We scored enough points to win today. It’s frustrating. It comes down to wanting to play defense, wanting to go get the ball and wanting it more than them. Washington probably had 10 times they got on the floor for a ball. We had 0,” Wilson said.
“We drew up a good scouting report. We knew all of them would shoot the three. And we let ‘em. Frustrating.”
Cresswell finished with 14 points to lead Fort Madison after getting into foul trouble early and sitting out most of the second period. Guzman had 12. Roman Roth led all scorers with 19.
The Hounds fall to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in the Southeast Conference. Washington improves to 2-2 in the conference and 4-5 overall.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here