GHV girls hold off late surge to top N-P

The Garner-Hayfield-Ventura girls continue to fine tune their game heading into the final week of the regular season.  The Cardinals currently stand at sixth place in the Top of Iowa Conference West Division. They trail division leader, Forest City (10-2) by five games. Leading the East division is West Fork with a record of 10-1.

Lake Mills 63, GHV 54

A close game until the end, the Garner-Hayfield-Ventura Cardinals (6-10, 5-7) came up short down the stretch as they fell to the Lake Mills Bulldogs (11-5, 7-5) by a final score of 54-63.

The Cardinals came out strong, opening up a 10-point lead early in the second period, but a late run by the Bulldogs saw the away team up four with :10 seconds remaining. A buzzer beater three by GHV’s Makaya Shropshire brought the halftime score to 28-29.

The third period saw five lead changes and two ties. As the teams entered the fourth period 50-49, the Bulldogs held a slight lead, but roughly three minutes into the fourth, the GHV girls began to run out of steam. Lake Mills steadily built their lead to finish the game.

“As the trend has seems to be all year, we get off to a fairly good start but can’t maintain that performance for 32 minutes,” said GHV Head Coach Matt Erpelding. “We allowed one of their shooters to get open looks early which jump started her to a huge game.”

As a team, GHV shot 40 percent from the field to Lake Mills’ 38; rebounded one more board and recorded four more assists. Where GHV fell short was ball control. Lake Mills forced 22 turnovers while nabbing 14 steals. For their part, the Cardinals managed five steals while forcing 15 turnovers.

As a result, Lake Mills had 21 points off turnovers to GHV’s 11.

Hannah Lau put in a monstrous performance, scoring 27 points with 9/12 free throw shooting to go with 14 rebounds, four assists and three blocks. Also contributing was Jillian Heitland with nine points, five rebounds and three steals; Jade Hanson with seven points and three rebounds; Shropshire with six points, two rebounds and two assists; and Maddie Williams with five points, four assists and two rebounds.

“We need to eliminate our mental mistakes moving forward, as that is what is allowing teams to get back into the game,” said Erpelding.

GHV 61, N-P 54

In a game of two halves, the Garner-Hayfield-Ventura Cardinals (5-7, 7-10) held on to beat Nashua-Plainfield (2-15) Saturday.

The Cardinals got off to a hot start, making two back-to-back threes on their way to a 20-7 first period lead. GHV built on its first period lead, but N-P did just enough to keep themselves in the game before going into the locker room down 38-20.

GHV held N-P at bay to start the second half, but missed opportunities and scrappy defense by N-P lead way to a resurgence. With five minutes remaining in the game, N-P was on a run and had come within 12, when Jillian Heitland scored eight unanswered points.

The N-P girls weren’t about to give up. The team made free throws down the stretch and continued to get stops, coming within six points with just under two minutes left in the game. But the Cardinals persevered and held off the incumbents to secure the win, 61-54.

“We allowed them to make a run and get back into the game by turning the ball over against pressure and shooting free throws very poorly in the fourth period,” said GHV Head Coach Matt Erpelding.

In a game where every possession mattered, the Cardinals held only a slight advantage in nearly every statistical category: field goal percentage (37.8-37.2), rebounds (39-38), assists (12-8), blocks (2-3) and turnovers (18-21).

Leading the way for Cardinal scorers was Hannah Lau with a double-double at 24 points, 14 rebounds, three assists and two steals. Heitland added 10 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals. Mara Anderson added eight points, three rebounds and two steals off the bench.

Maddie Williams chipped in six points and six rebounds while Kayla Leerar added six points and five rebounds. Makaya Shopshire added another five with three assists and four steals.

“Even though we didn’t finish the game well it was a good learning experience for closing out a game in pressure situations,” said Erpelding. “We should not have been in that situation but being able to learn from it will hopefully help us moving forward.”