The Lady Crimsons continue their hot start to the season with a sloppy win over the Ballard Bruins 57-35 in game that involved many turnovers, forced passes, and lackluster offensive play.
Despite the score, Ballard did not go down easily, the Crimsons owe their victory to their solid defensive effort forcing twenty-four turnovers during the game.
“We have been trying to pick up the pace and pressure on the defensive side of the ball,” Head Coach Jeffrey Sparks said, “We forced 24 turnovers and we played a half court zone defense and we got some good reps out of that.”
Jaela Johnson (10, #33) was a key component of the defense during the game. She hustled for the ball and forced the turnover. Johnson also was a go to shooter for the team and knocked several big shots.
“We started off slow, and we picked it up after halftime.” Johnson said, “Our defense kept us motivated, we made them rattle and made them not want to play defense only offense and we kept the pressure on so we kept getting the turnovers.”
On the flip side, the Lady Crimson offense made several poor decisions and looked discombobulated in the game. The offense forced passes into tight spaces when pressured, which resulted in blocked shots and needles turnovers.
“We played inconsistently on offense and didn’t get enough movement throughout the game, didn’t execute when we needed too tonight,” Sparks said, “We showed some talent though, when we got our looks and found the open man we got off a good shot.”
After the first half, Ballard began to apply more pressure to whichever Crimson had the ball. This led to the Ballard defense getting more breakaway scores after the turnovers and slowing down the Crimson’s offense.
“Our offense rushed and hurry up a shot at times, that’s one of things we talk about at practice,” Sparks said, “We have to slow down and take it one game at a time, it will take a while to learn and we will keep working on it.”
Tonysha Curry (11, #23) had a slower night than usual on offense and had trouble getting the ball to the open player.
“Everything was less than expected on offense, Curry said, “Ballard has a great home crowd and I think that got to us a little bit.”
“I was a little off tonight, we couldn’t get to much started on offense and that’s something we are going to be working on,” Curry said.
This game revealed a lot about the Lady Crimsons; the team has the ability to hang in and play defense throughout all four quarters of the game and the offense has to learn how to run as a unit more efficiently. One thing that the Crimsons have improved on since last season is ball sharing.
“I honestly think we shared the ball well tonight, the problem was that we were rushing when we did it which led to the turnovers and forced shots,” Curry said, “There was no selfishness with the ball in tonight’s game.”
The Lady Crimsons play their next game at Franklin County in Frankfort Kentucky on Saturday December 5. Tipoff is at 6:30 p.m.
