Jeff uses big run, drops Lady Cats

The North Harrison Lady Cats went from one end of the spectrum to the other in their second game of the season. After dominating the Lady Eagles of Lanesville last Wednesday, North Harrison found itself on the receiving end of the same Friday night as visiting Jeffersonville blasted the Lady Cats, 65-46.
Going into the game, North Harrison coach Missy Voyles wasn’t sure what to expect from the Lady Devils with new coach Mike Warren leading the team. The Lady Cats had played Jeff during the summer season but in a different kind of setting.
‘We played well with Jeff over the summer, but summer’s nothing,’ Voyles said after the Lanesville win. ‘It’s a running clock. We’re going to battle with their size. It’s a new coach up there, too. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He might come and play a 2-3 zone and slow the game down. I’ve never seen Jeff do that, but who knows. It’s a new thing.’
North Harrison held its own to begin the game, but the Jeffersonville defense caused the Lady Cats a lot of problems, with North Harrison mounting up 10 turnovers in the first quarter. Jeffersonville led 18-9 after the first period.
The Lady Cats scored the first four points of the second period to close the gap to five, 18-13.
‘We were looking more to try to keep the ball out of (Haley) Vogen’s and (Emily) Gray’s hands because they had 42 points last year,’ Voyles said. ‘So, we were trying to focus a little more inside.’
With North Harrison in a 1-3-1 zone defense, the Lady Devils went to the perimeter, getting three three-balls from Aurreeshae Hines and Catera Stevenson. That ignited a 22-4 run by Jeffersonville to finish out the half for a 40-17 lead.
‘When they hit a couple of threes, we wilted a little bit and that kind of affected us mentally instead of just staying with our game plan,’ Voyles said. ‘We had to change a few things, but, as bad as the defense looked at times, we sputtered more offensively than we should.’
Jeffersonville extended its lead to 59-25 in the third period with a 19-8 run.
North Harrison won the fourth quarter with most of the Lady Devils’ bench on the floor, but the hole was much too deep for the Lady Cats, who suffered the 65-46 loss.
‘They hit some big outside shots, and we came down and we’re rushing,’ Voyles said. ‘Right now, we’re playing a lot of young kids who have not played before. They’re catching the ball and taking off dribbling because they don’t like the pressure or they’re dribbling into areas they shouldn’t be going, just kind of playing very rushed because they’re not used to that kind of physical game. Hopefully, they learn and get a little better.’
Kendra Lambert led the Lady Cats with 15 points, with nine of those from behind the arc. North Harrison was 13 of 39 from the field (33 percent) and 18 of 32 from the charity stripe. The Lady Cats had 29 turnovers for the 32 minutes (19 of those were in the first half).
‘I know we’re going to struggle, especially early when we play against some teams who have some height,’ Voyles said. ‘We don’t have that height, and we’ve got to learn how to rotate a little better on defense. We’ve got to learn how to do things smart on offense, because we’re not going to power through anybody down on the block. So, we’ve got a lot of things to work on as far as being more intelligent with what we do offensively, be more efficient with what we do.’
Hines led Jeffersonville with 18 points, and Taylor Sykes finished with 11 points. The Lady Devils were 24 of 60 (40 percent) from the field and 10 of 20 from the free-throw line. Jeffersonville had 23 turnovers.
‘They’re strong physically,’ Voyles said. ‘The Hines girl is physically strong. It’s hard to make her pick a dribble up.’
Despite the lopsided score, Voyles said there were positives to take away from the game.
‘They kept fighting, and I’ll give them a little credit for that,’ she said. ‘They kept playing aggressively and kept doing what we were trying to tell them to do.
‘At a certain point, I’m realistically knowing, ‘You’re not coming back from this deficit. So, let’s start working on our game. Let’s stop worrying about what we need to do to stop them. Let’s worry about the things we need to do better before we go into next week in conference play, working on what we need to do offensively and defensively’,’ Voyles said. ‘I went back to some stuff I want us to do defensively that I had gone away from.’