PLYMOUTH — Plymouth’s Lady Pilgrims returned to their home floor and suffered a tough loss to Tippecanoe Valley in overtime 66-61.
Plymouth held the lead through the entire game after grabbing an early 7-2 cushion on an aggressive attacking defense that left the Lady Vikings on their heels forcing six uncharacteristic first-quarter turnovers.
Valley weathered the storm and finally took their first lead with 3:50 to play in the game. The lead changed hands three times after that with Valley pulling away in the overtime period.
“I thought maybe they were a little more aggressive down the stretch than we were,” said Plymouth coach Dave Duncan. “Obviously free throws is what gapped the game a little bit.”
“I didn’t feel like we did a very good job locating shooters,” he said. “We talked about that and it’s something that we are going to work on in practice. If we take care of that problem early it’s not a problem late in the game. We didn’t adjust.”
The Plymouth defense took away Valley leading scorer Sidney Wagner for much of the game but the Lady Vikings found eight three’s — four each — from Jillian Walls and Kaydence Mellot. Mellot ended with 20 points on the night, Walls with 17. Both were red hot shooting for the night.
“There aren’t too many times when you feel like you got beat from the three-point line,” said Duncan. “But I thought their three-point shooting kept them in the game and gave them a chance to win at the end.”
Turnovers were really the back story of the entire game. The Lady Pilgrims were able to force Valley into 18 on the night and led to Plymouth controlling the lead for most of the game. While Plymouth made 13, eight of those were at a crucial time in the fourth quarter and five were in the overtime.
“Going into the overtime I think we had three or four straight turnovers,” said Duncan. “That’s uncharacteristic of us. We have to figure some things out.”
“Early in the game we were real aggressive and dictated what we wanted to do on the defensive end,” he said. “I think we maybe got a little bit tired and they were able to get skip passes over our traps and we didn’t locate the shooters.”
Plymouth also played much of the game without key senior Mary Kate Flynn who left with four minutes to play in regulation with five fouls. Clair Tanner picked up her fifth later in the quarter, sitting out the overtime period.
Lindsay Janus stepped up with a big game hitting for 23 points adding three assists and three steals.
Sydney Weir nailed a long-distance three at the end of regulation to send it to overtime.
“We are going to see that type of defense with people trying to take Clair away,” said Duncan. “I thought Lindsay Janus stepped up and played really well.”
Plymouth moves to 5-3 on the year with their first NLC game at home on Saturday night with Goshen.
•VALLEY 66, PLYMOUTH 61
at Plymouth
Plymouth 9 28 47 55 61
Valley 7 23 42 55 66
Plymouth (61) — Tanner 5 0-0 14, Janus 6 7-9 23, Cook 1 0-0 3, Flynn 2 0-0 4, Sheedy 0 2-2 2, Clady 4 1-3 9, Weir 2 0-0 5. Totals 21 10-15 61.
Valley (66) — Wagner 5 2-4 12, Craig 3 5-6 11, Walls 5 3-4 17, Backus 3 1-3 7, Mellot 6 4-6 20, Young 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 15-22 66.
3 Pt. FG — Plymouth 10 (Tanner, Janus 4), Valley 8 (Walls, Mellot 4).
Rebounds — Plymouth 17 (Clady 6), Valley 23 (Wagner 7).
Assists — Plymouth 13 (Weir 5), Valley 8 (Wagner 6).
Steals — Plymouth 12 (Weir 5), Valley 8 (Craig, Walls 3).
Turnovers — Plymouth 13, Valley 18.
Fouls (Fouled out) — Plymouth 22 (Flynn, Tanner), Valley 14.
