Cold shooting sinks Panther girls

Creston girls had a strong defensive performance Monday against a top five team in the Hawkeye Ten Conference.

Unfortunately, the offense wasn’t productive enough to hang with Atlantic in the second half in a 47-28 loss.

Atlantic’s twin 5-11 towers of Paytn Harter and Katrina Williams combined for all of the Trojans’ points in building a 22-14 halftime lead. Harter, Atlantic’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder with 1,281 career points, led the Trojans with 21 points. She was perfect from the field (8-8) and at the free throw line (5-5). Williams finished with 11, many coming off offensive rebounds.

Junior guard Kadley Bailey was the lone Panther in double figures with 11 points. Brynn Tussey had six points and a team-high seven rebounds. Hollynn Rieck had four assists, reaching 200 in her career. The junior point guard ranks second in career assists at Creston behind the late Lindsay Courtney. Ella Turner snared five of the team’s 14 steals.

“Keeping a good team under 50, I’ll take that any day defensively,” said Creston coach Tony Neubauer. “But you’re not going to win a lot of varsity basketball games scoring 28 points. We get decent looks. We just have to put the ball in the basket. We did a good job of creating some turnovers, but too many times we didn’t convert.”

The Panthers shot 24% from the field (12-50) and 1-of-13 from 3-point range.

Neubauer said a key stretch of the game occurred in the second quarter, when the Panthers rallied from a 14-5 deficit entering the period to pull within two points (16-14) with two minutes remaining.

While Creston’s offense stalled with two turnovers, Atlantic finished on a 6-0 run with two inside baskets by Harter and a pair of free throws by Williams.

“Right after we cut it to two we had a little turnover burst,” Neubauer said. “We closed the gap, but we have to be able to score consistently to get over the gap in those situations. This is the best defensive team we’ve had since Kelsey Fields played.”

Atlantic took control in the third quarter when the Panthers made two shots from the field and fell behind 38-18.

The Panthers traveled to Glenwood Tuesday after falling to 5-11 overall and 3-5 in Hawkeye Ten play. Atlantic improved to 12-5 and 3-2.

CRESTON (28) — Totals — (FG FT PTS) 12 3-5 28. Kadley Bailey 5 0-0 11, Brynn Tussey 3 0-0 6, Ady Morrison 1 2-3 4, Jensan Tussey 1 0-0 2, Ella Turner 1 0-0 2, Hollyn Rieck 1 0-0 2, Braylee Porkorny 0 1-2 1. FG shooting — 12-50 (24 percent). 3-point goals — 1-13 (Bailey 1). Rebounds — 23 (B. Tussey 7, Turner 5, Morrison 4, Rieck 3). Assists — 5 (Rieck 4). Steals — 14 (Turner 5, Rieck 3, Bailey 3). Blocked shots — 3 (Morrison 2). Turnovers — 16. Team fouls — 8. Fouled out — Turner.

ATLANTIC (47) — Totals — (FG FT PTS) 18 8-9 47. Paytn Harter 8 5-5 21, Katyrina Williams 4 3-4 11, Zoey Kirchhoff 2 0-0 6, Makenna Schroeder 2 0-0 5, Lila Wiederstein 2 0-0 4. 3-point goals — 3 (Kirchhoff 2, Schroeder 1). Team fouls — 8. Fouled out — none.