In Class 3A Sectional play at New Prairie, South Bend St. Joe defeated the Lady Pilgrims 51-33 ending Plymouth’s season at 6-15.
The game started off promising for Plymouth grabbing an early lead 14-8 after the first quarter, plus, getting Lady Indian, Alex Kubusch, in early foul trouble (3) after the first quarter. But the wheels started coming off the wagon midway through the second quarter for Plymouth thanks to a couple of defensive lapses allowing St. Joe freshman Madeline Raster to hit a couple of three’s and eventually allow St. Joe to get back into the ballgame at halftime, trailing 23-20.
“Things started sliding downward for us when we missed on two defensive rotations allowing the Raster girl to hit those two three pointers. You could just see our confidence get rattled a bit going into halftime”, said Plymouth Coach Dave Cox.
Going into the Second half, St. Joe built on their momentum which seen Kubusch score 18 of her game high 21 points in that half. Plymouth fell apart offensively going 1/5 shooting in the Second half, collecting 15 turnovers in the process.
“We were left scratching our heads that entire second half as a coaching staff. Our girls just mentally fell apart, that stings when you know your better than what you played here tonight. When St. Joe went into their ” stall” offense, we were only down by 3 points. I liked our chances. But the girls seemed rattled and we couldn’t figure it out. In that fourth quarter, we had the wrong players taking out the ball, making bad decisions….it was just surprising to us. Kurbusch started hitting the three’s….it was too much to overcome apparently.”, said Cox.
Plymouth is graduating two Seniors, Victoria DeWar and Brittany Himes. 100% of the offense is expected to return next year for Plymouth.
“Good news for us is this game left a bad taste in our mouths and we will have a whole year to think about this performance. Everyone but two players should come back next year for us. I like this team a lot, but we need to figure out some things to get where we need to be this time next year….at a Sectional Championship game!”, said Cox.
