Freshman Lily Canan made two threes in the game, both in the second half.
Photos by Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
Sophomore Ryleigh Dotson tied for the team lead in points with six.
Senior Brooklyn Crickmore was a presence down low racking up rebounds.
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
COVINGTON — The Lady Railroaders basketball team fell to Houston, 65-29, in the first round of the Buccaneer Holiday Tournament on Dec. 29.
The Lady Wildcats got this big win with their press and defensive pressure causing turnovers. Houston was able to get out into transition and score without Bradford getting back and setting up their defense.
Head coach Josh Siedling said they knew Houston would try to pressure them with the press and their zone. They just couldn’t avoid falling into the trap.
“We knew kind of how they ran their 2-2-1 and their 2-3 that they wanted to grind us out on both ends of the floor. We knew as long as we could keep control of the ball, we could maybe reverse that effect. But, we kind of gave into it and wore down towards the end,” Siedling said.
Houston led 35-13 at halftime and continued to cruise to the win. Bradford did make some plays and were able to put points up on the board.
At times, the Lady Railroaders broke the press and got up some quality shots. But once the deficit continued to grow, then Bradford started to force long passes which were picked off by Houston.
Siedling said once get they past this hump of letting the long runs by opponents get to them, they will be fine. He has already seen this team improve on that area from last season.
The team is starting to fix their mistakes and learn from them on the fly.
“We’ll go in spurts of breaking presses one or two times. Then, as soon as we get a turnover on one end it’s kind of an avalanche effect,” Siedling said. “We’re getting better on not letting those runs happen as long. Last year, we let those take the whole game. But, we’re doing a lot better job of feeling it out and realizing you make one mistake, let’s come down and fix it the next time.”
The offense did look better in the second half. Freshman Lily Canan had six points on two made threes in the second half. Sophomore Ryleigh Dotson also had six points on two made threes. Senior Brooklyn Crickmore had nine rebounds after not being in the game for most of the second half. She first checked into the game with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter.
After getting Houston into foul trouble in the first half, they couldn’t keep that trend going. Bradford only had four trips to the free throw line.
The Lady Railroaders will go up against Covington in the consolation game on Dec. 30 at 3 p.m.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
