Shelbyville Lady Golden Bears Basketball

Shelbyville coasts to victory, 70-47 By BRIAN HARMON bharmon@shelbynews.com GREENFIELD — As Greenfield-Central welcomed Shelbyville into Hancock County for a girls’ basketball game Tuesday, the host Cougars were no doubt looking for some Shelby County revenge. The Cougars were handed a 62-34 loss by Shelby County’s Triton Central ball club over the weekend and were anxious to get back on the court Tuesday. And for one half, Greenfield-Central’s aggressive play paid off. One half does not a basketball game make, however, and Shelbyville pulled away over the final two periods to coast to a 70-47 win. “You knew coming in, as poorly as Greenfield played against Triton ... and Triton had a lot to do with that, that they were going to come out and play us as hard as they could. And they did,” Shelbyville coach John Fair said. Class 3A, No. 4-ranked Shelbyville improved to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the Hoosier Heritage Conference. Greenfield-Central’s loss marked its third straight defeat and dropped the Cougars to 2-3, 1-1 HHC. It was a mixture of man-to-man and zone defenses that caused the Golden Bears trouble in the first half. Four Shelbyville turnovers in the first three minutes left the visitors trailing 6-1. It wasn’t until the Golden Bears turned up their own defensive pressure that they started to play effectively. Shelbyville went on a 14-2 run to close out the first period, due in large part to 12 forced turnovers. Katie Douglas led the way for Shelbyville in the first period, scoring five points and grabbing three rebounds, as team scoring leader Gretchen Haehl (23 points per game on 67 percent shooting) struggled from the field, missing 4 of 6 attempts. Greenfield-Central’s team leader, Ellen Hamilton (20 points per game), struggled in the first period as well, and had just two points. She found her rhythm in the second period, however, and scored 11 of the team’s 16 second-period points to leave the Cougars trailing just 30-25 at the break. Fair was not a happy coach. “There was some adversity in the first half, and there was a lot of adversity in the half time locker room,” Fair said with a grin. “They dealt with some adversity there. I was upset by their performance.” Douglas must have been listening. The 6-foot junior center scored four straight points to start the second half and gave Shelbyville a 34-25 lead one minute into the half. That was the start of a 13-3 run that put the Golden Bears ahead 43-28 with four minutes to go in the third period. Greenfield-Central got no closer than 15 points the rest of the way. “Greenfield changed defenses so much in the first half ... I thought we settled for jump shots and weren’t as aggressive against their zone presses as we should have been,” Fair said. “We decided at half time we were going to get the ball into Katie because Katie’s really improved as a ball player. We specifically went over some stuff to make sure that she got the ball.” Douglas finished with 18 points and six rebounds. Haehl scored 18 points, seven in the decisive third period, and made five steals. Hamilton finished with a game-high 19 points for the Cougars. Shelbyville is off until Dec. 6 when it travels to Columbus East. Notes: