The Garden City Telegram
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Lady Busters fall short in season opener
Published 11/7/2009 in Sports
By BRETT MARSHALL
bmarshall@gctelegram.com
LIBERAL -- The Garden City Community College Lady Broncbusters did enough things well to win their season-opening basketball game against the Lady Thunderbirds of New Mexico Junior College.
The problem, though, was they did enough things not so well that eventually cost them the opportunity to capture the opening game of the Seward County Pepsi Classic Friday afternoon at The Green House, home of the SCCC Lady Saints.
GCCC coach Alaura Sharp could only ponder the possibilities after looking up to see a 67-56 final score in her first game as head coach of the Lady Busters.
"We'll learn from it, we'll grow from it," Sharp said. "I'm disappointed we played in spurts. We showed flashes of playing well both offensively and defensively. But when you have 29 turnovers, the spurts need to be more positive than what we showed."
Turnovers. Time after time, in both the first half (19) and second (10), miscues and moving at an up-tempo pace eventually proved too much for Sharp's team to overcome against a team that was taller, more experienced and had three games under its belt before taking the floor on Friday.
"I thought we did a lot of things well, especially defending the interior," Sharp said of the effort to keep 6-foot-3 inch Hanka Musa and 6-footer Brianna Edmonds off the boards. "For the most part I think we did that."
The Lady Busters won the battle of rebounds convincingly, 46-36, as 5-8 freshman guard Aubrica Robins paced the team with 10 boards to go along with 12 points in her debut at GCCC. Sophomore center Deidre Mays led the Lady Busters offense with 14 points while LaMesia Abbott scored 12 and Cheree Freeman chipped in with 11 points and nine rebounds before fouling out late in the game.
Sharp's squad came out with high-energy and took an early 15-7 lead through the first eight minutes of the game. But the Lady T-Birds went on one of its spurts to eventually take the lead for the first time at 20-19 at the midway point of the half. Then Garden hit one of its down points as New Mexico finished off a 15-4 run to lead by eight, 32-12, with just under six minutes to go before intermission.
Then, the tide turned back in favor of the Lady Busters who finished off the half with a 5-0 run to cut the deficit to five, 33-28, at the break.
"We've just got to put it out on the floor for 40 minutes," Sharp said. "We lost that energy and it is essential to have that if you're going to overcome the number of turnovers we had. It's hard to re-group, but I believe our team will come out and play with effort and energy tomorrow (2 p.m. today against Hesston College)."
After giving up an initial basket to the T-Birds to start the second half, the Lady Busters went on a 16-4 run of its own to go up 44-39, with 10 minutes to go. Then the tide swung back to New Mexico, this time with a 15-4 surge that put the T-Birds in the lead at 57-53 with 2:30 to go. The critical part of the run came in a span of 49 seconds when Garden turned the ball over three consecutive times in the backcourt and the T-Birds turned them into easy lay-up baskets.
Still down only three at 57-54 with 2:01 to play after an Abbott free throw, the Lady Busters went flat one final time. New Mexico scored nine straight points from the 1:53 mark to 38 seconds left. Abbott scored the lone Garden basket in the final two minutes at the 29-second mark. In the final 7:49, GCCC struggled to get the ball in the hole, managing just two field goals in that stretch.
"We've got to come right back and do the little things right," Sharp said. "They played hard and rebounding is all about effort. I thought Aileen Gonzalez did a nice job coming off the bench."
Gonzalez, a freshman from Sublette, had been sidelined for the past two weeks with a sprained medial cruciate ligament in her left knee. She had just returned to practice a few days ago.
"I'm proud of how she came out and did what we asked her to do," Sharp said. "We wanted her to defend and rebound and she did a good job considering she hadn't practiced much."
Samantha O'Shields and Trayvia Hart topped the T-Birds scoring with 17 and 12 points, respectively, and the winning team canned 7-of-17 three pointers compared to 1-of-11 for the Lady Busters.
After today's game against Hesston, the Lady Busters are off until Thursday when they host their own Pepsi Classic, along with the men, and welcome in Sterling College's junior varsity, Eastern Oklahoma and Howard (Texas) Junior College. The women will play 5:30 p.m. games each of the three days of the Classic at Perryman Athletic Complex.
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Seward County Pepsi Classic
New Mexico JC 67, Garden City CC 56
New Mexico JC (3-1) 67 -- Rivera 2-4 0-2 4, McGee 0-3 2-2 2, Edmonds 1-5 1-2 3, Hart 3-8 5-6 12, O'Shields 7-12 0-0 17, Inacio 1-4 0-0 2, Crawford 0-3 0-0 0, Gentry 2-4 0-0 6, Fratzola 0-0 0-0 0, Mathis 0-4 0-0 0, Reaves 1-2 1-1 4, Hillenbrand 2-3 2-3 2-2 6, Musa 5-9 1-2 11. Totals 24-61 12-17 67.
Garden City CC (0-1) 56 -- Freeman 4-8 3-3 11, Mays 6-10 2-5 14, Robins 4-15 3-4 12, Abbott 6-16 0-1 12, Naylor 1-4 0-0 2, Gonzalez 0-0 1-2 1, Bohl 0-1 0-0 0, Martinez 0-0 0-0 0, Troup 2-7 0-0 4. Totals 23-61 9-15 56.
Halftime score -- New Mexico JC 33, Garden City 28. Three-point goals -- New Mexico JC 7-17 (Rivera 0-1, Hart 1-3, O'Shields 3-7, Inacio 0-1, Gentry 2-3, Mathis 0-1, Reaves 1-1); Garden City 1-11 (Robins 1-6, Abbott 0-3, Naylor 0-1, Bohl 0-1). Rebounds -- New Mexico JC 36 (Musa 5), Garden City 46 (Robins 10). Total fouls -- New Mexico JC 18, Garden City 17. Fouled out -- Garden City (Freeman). Assists -- New Mexico 9 (O'Shields 4), Garden City 9 (Freeman 3). Turnovers -- New Mexico 21, Garden City 29. Blocked shots -- New Mexico 3 (Edmonds 2), Garden City 3 (Freeman 3). Steals -- New Mexico 6 (6 with 1 each), Garden City 5 (Naylor 2). Technical fouls -- none.
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