MG girls hold off Cardington

After a freshman-sparked fourth-quarter run erased an 11-point deficit for Cardington and brought them within a 41-40 margin of visiting Mount Gilead on Tuesday, the Indians used poise and strong defense to pull out a 49-45 win over the Pirates.

MG’s defense held Cardington scoreless for nearly all the game’s final 3:45. Meanwhile, after not scoring since Olivia Long’s three-pointer with 7:06 left in regulation boosted their lead to a 41-30 margin, the Indians were able to score eight points — six from the free throw line down the stretch.

“Liv’s stepped up big all year long,” said Mount Gilead head coach Nick Vukovich. “She’s battled everything you could think of as a human being. She’s very resilient; she’s probably the glue of our team. She holds our team together. And we work on free throws every day in practice. The kids stepped up tonight with confidence and they were shooting free throws with confidence.”

Aubrey Thomas hit a basket and free throw to give MG a four-point lead and then added a pair of foul shots to make it 46-40 with 1:18 left on the clock. One foul shot each by Danielle Pohlkotte and Faith White would increase the MG lead to eight points.

Madison Caulkins scored off an offensive rebound for Cardington with 16 seconds left and, after a Pohlkotte free throw, the Pirates finished the game with a Kinstin Henthorn three-pointer, but the Indians would finish the game on top.

While pleased with his team’s effort in a game that starting point guard Abigail Hardwick wasn’t able to play in, Cardington coach Kevin Fitzpatrick noted that his team had a few untimely mistakes that hurt them.

“We had some crucial turnovers in the beginning and also at the end that really hurt us,” he said. “We always seem to have one bad turnover that’s really frustrating, but I’m proud of our effort.”

Those offensive struggles were on display in the early going, as the Indians rode four points each from White and Thomas to an early 12-4 lead before a basket by Celia Hall and a free throw from Lydia Hess made it a five-point margin after the first period.

While the Indians would lead by as many as 10 points in the second quarter, Cardington was able to close within seven at 23-16 by halftime. They would then pick up their intensity on defense in the second half. Trailing 27-19, they would get five straight points at the free throw line by Magi Hallabrin to get within a four-point margin.

“We fought our tails off,” said Fitzpatrick. “We were down seven at halftime and came out in the third quarter and had a goal we were going to run our scramble defense and we were just running and flying all over the place. We had some different kids in there and they came out and were flying around.”

Vukovich felt his team just needed to adjust to Cardington’s defensive intensity and be patient against it.

“What we had to understand was that’s what Cardington does,” he said. “They run that scramble defense, they try to get you to force turnovers, they try to get you out of your norm. We still have young kids. We had three sophomores play today — they’re learning the word patience. We have a couple juniors who are learning the word patience. Once they sped us up, we had to go out and relax and do what we do and when we did that, we were fine.”

And the Indians would bounce back. Long hit on four free throws to spark a 6-0 run that boosted the MG lead back to 10 points. After Caulkins scored three quick points for Cardington, White then finished the quarter with a long-range buzzer-beating three to give the Indians a 36-26 lead gong int the final quarter.

While Cardington got a couple quick baskets from Jill Bertke to open the fourth, a pair of Greer Simpson free throws and Long’s three-pointer made the score 41-30 before both teams traded runs to finish the game.

With the regular season winding down, both coaches are now looking towards getting prepared for the playoffs. For Fitzpatrick, whose team was led by Bertke’s 17 and Caulkins’ 11, a big key is to continue working on improving the team’s depth. Against the Indians, his squad got strong contributions from three freshmen — Bertke, Hall and Lundyn Blevins — which pleased him.

“We’re going to keep building our depth,” he said. “We have two varsity-only games. That’s kind of nice. I’ll have everyone for four quarters, so I can get a lot of depth and play a lot of kids. That’s my goal — to get a lot of minutes for everybody and we have a chance to keep seeing what we have. It’s kind of nice to see that tonight. Obviously, you don’t want to lose your point guard, but it was nice to see those kids step up and make plays.”

For Mount Gilead, White scored 14 and Thomas added 13. Vukovich noted that his team simply needs to play with confidence, as they’ve shown the ability to beat anyone in the league this year.

“Number one is our focus in practicing,” he said. “Are we listening? Are we doing what we’re told to do? Are we doing it to the best of our abilities? If we can do that, we’ll be fine. We’ve beat the top four teams in the conference. We know we can play with teams, we just have to have confidence. In practice, I’m going to watch them, make sure we’re having confidence, put them in situations to be successful and hopefully that carries over into the tournament.”

Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS