Errors plague Cardinal girls

(Above) GHV’s Mara Anderson drives around a Forest City guard in Friday night’s game.  The Indians topped the Cardinals, 44-34.  -Reporter photo by Chris Barragy

Poor free-throw shooting and too many turnovers caused the Garner-Hayfield-Ventura girls to drop a 44-34 game to Forest City (7-1, 8-3) on Friday, Jan. 13.

It was raining threes in the first quarter.  The Indians opened the game with three treys, while Jillian Heitland pumped in two for the Cardinals, 9-6.  The first quarter ended with GHV trailing by five, 18-13.

Forest City put in nine unanswered points to open the second quarter to take a 27-13 lead. The Cards followed that by tallying six points of their own for a 27-19 halftime score.

“We needed to get back to executing our offenses much more efficiently and that starts with knowing where everyone is supposed to be and getting into the offense much quicker than we have been the last two games,” said Coach Matt Erpelding.

The third quarter didn’t see a lot of offense on either end of the floor, with both teams managing only six points apiece, 33-25.

Makaya Shropshire sunk a three and followed that with a field goal to get to within eight points, 38-30, but that was as close as the Cardinals were going to get.  Forest City went on to capture the 44-34 victory.

Heitland led the team with 12-points, half of them from the three-point line.  Hannah Lau pumped in nine points, while Shropshire had five and Maddie Williams and Jade Hanson each had three-points.  Sadie Oulman had two points.

Hanson and Lau led the team under the basket with 13 and 12 rebounds respectively. They both had four blocked shots apiece.

Williams led the team in assists with three.  Lau and Shropshire had two assists apiece.  Shropshire had three steals.

“The positives we can take from the game are the fact we were able to play man-to-man defense effectively for an extended period of time,” said Erpelding.  “We were also able to control the boards for a majority of the game.”