SYRACUSE - They may not blow you away with offense, but the Wawasee Warriors' defense can bury you.
Improving to 3-0 in the Northern Lakes Conference, the Warriors dealt the NorthWood Panthers a 43-24 loss in girls basketball action Saturday in Syracuse."The offense on both ends, just looked like a struggle," Wawasee coach Kem Zolman said. "Our kids really focused in on the defensive end. The offense just wasn't in a flow. This is an NLC game, and you expect those kind of grind-out games."
Forcing 27 turnovers, the Warriors defeated the Panthers for the fifth-straight time and pulled into a tie for first place in the NLC with Elkhart Memorial.
"Mentally, we played scared, which you can't do against a veteran team like Wawasee," NorthWood coach Steve Neff said. "That's what I'm most disappointed in - that we didn't compete better."
Scoring just eight points in the first half, the NorthWood offense never really got off against the Warriors, scoring 36 points below their season average.
"Wawasee's a good team, but I'm very disappointed in our outfit," Neff said of his team, whose last game was Dec. 23. "We practiced much better. I was disappointing with the amount of turnovers, and I think two of my guards had 16. We also missed a lot of free throws and gave up a lot of offensive rebounds."
Even with their struggles, the Panthers were still within 19-14 following a bucket by senior Courtney Simpson with 5:28 remaining in the third quarter. However, Wawasee used a 10-2 run to close the quarter out, taking a 29-16 advantage into the final quarter.
Wawasee maintained that lead through the first few minutes of the fourth, but NorthWood did find a way to pull within 31-24 with 4:35 remaining.
Just when things were looking good for the road team, Wawasee scored the last 12 points of the game, with senior Taylor Goshert netting six of those points and senior Ashlee Ort scoring four of the others.
"When you look at how badly we did play, with five minutes to go, we're down by seven with the ball," Neff said. "Then, we made another turnover, came down and stopped doing what we had been doing. Then, they just gave the ball to Goshert and said, 'Here. You go score or go to the free-throw line.'"
Goshert persevered through a 4-of-18 shooting night to lead all scorers with 15 points, while also grabbing a team-high seven rebounds.
Warriors senior Ashlee Ort had a 10-point, five-rebound and four-assist game, while her twin sister, Kylee Ort, had nine points in limited minutes due to foul trouble.
The Warriors also got seven points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals out of senior Brennan McAdams.
Mixing and matching girls to go with Goshert, McAdams and the Ort sisters, Zolman was pleased with the results, as junior Lauren Tait finished with three rebounds and three steals. Junior Kaytie Woodard also had three rebounds and four steals in the win.
"We're just trying to get ourselves ready for the postseason," Zolman said. "Lauren is a junior, and has been doing a nice job of just being solid and understanding what her role is. I just thought kids did a really nice job of doing their roles tonight."
The win sets up a big conference game Saturday in Syracuse, when Memorial comes to town for a matchup that will be critical in deciding a conference champion. Junior varsity game time is 1 p.m.
Opening their NLC schedule with Memorial, Plymouth and Wawasee, the Panthers are at 0-3 in the NLC, meaning they're now just concentrating on championships outside of the regular season.
Having met in Sectional 21 the past five years, Wawasee and NorthWood are very comfortable with seeing each other in the postseason, and Neff is now looking for a sixth meeting.
"I don't care about this win necessarily," he said. "The sectional is the one people will remember. We got to the point where we were ready to compete at the end, but fell back down."
