BENTON — Scoring was a problem for the Wawasee girls basketball team in a 45-22 loss Friday at Fairfield. Making 5 of 29 field goal attempts, Wawasee coach Kem Zolman believes the offensive woes led to bigger problems for his senior-less squad. “We’re not juggernauts when it comes to the offensive end, but we’re not that bad of shooters,” Zolman said. “With a young team, if things don’t go well on the offensive end, then the whole game goes to kaput. There were just a lot of things that went wrong.” Despite the lack of scoring, Wawasee (1-3) was only down 28-18 late in the third quarter, but then the aggression of the Fairfield Lady Falcons (3-1) turned the game into a rout. Leading by 10, Fairfield senior Brooke Mast missed two free throws, but sophomore Katie Kieper nabbed the second miss and put it back in for two points, while also getting fouled. Looking to convert the three-point play, Kieper missed her free throw attempt, but once again, Fairfield got the offensive board and junior Katie Yates put it right back in, increasing the Lady Falcons’ lead to 32-18 in a span of six seconds. In all, Fairfield got an offensive rebound on a missed free throw five times, which is something that can be pretty frustrating for a defensive-minded coach like Zolman. “As a coach it drives you insane because you’ve seen games won and lost on an offensive rebound on a missed free throw,” he said. “You preach that and you teach that and work on it. I guess the kids have to go through on-the-job training. They just have to. That was on-the-job training.” That stanza also handed Wawasee its third loss in four games, as the lone victory was against South Bend Career Academy, a team that’s 0-3 and has been outscored 177-21. Leading to the struggles of the team this season has been pure inexperience. Zolman’s starting lineup features one junior, three sophomores and a freshman, and they’re all trying to get a feel for one another. “We talked about team chemistry and what a team is like,” he said. “I don’t I believe we’re close to that yet. We’re still floundering as young kids trying to figure out the kind of a team we are. We’re going to be young and we’re going to make really foolish mistakes all year long. Our whole goal is to try to get them to compete the full 32 minutes. “In a year or two, we’re going to be alright,” he added. “Right now, we’re just going through some awful growing pains.” In the loss, sophomore Kylee Rostochak led the Lady Warriors with nine points on 3-of-12 shooting. Wawasee is back on the court today against Prairie Heights (2-3), with the junior varsity tipping off at 1 p.m.
