Bainbridge girls basketball wins second straight

Published 9:20 pm Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A combination of sharp shooting and second-chance points earned the Spartans a 49-35 victory over Ingraham Wednesday, their second Metro win of the season.

“We didn’t play as well as we can,” Lande said. “We’re missing our highest scorer, and we won by 15. It wasn’t pretty, but I’ll take that every night.”

The Spartans (2-1 in the Metro, 3-3 overall) shot 22-for-43 from the field but committed 30 turnovers.

“The two things we’ve worked extra hard on – because they seemed to be deficient – is breaking trap defenses and shooting the ball,” Lande said. “We shot over 50 percent, which is the first time we’ve done that.”

Senior Micki Johns led the Spartans on an 8-0 run to open the game, and Bainbridge cruised to a 15-5 lead.

“The first quarter I thought we played really well,” Lande said. “We played sharp and made the right passes and the right plays. The second quarter we kind of dropped off a bit.”

Johns, who posted eight points on four-for-five shooting, picked up three quick fouls in the second and sat out most of the quarter.

“Micki was really dominating inside in both rebounding and scoring, and I thought it really affected our ability with what we were able to do,” Lande said.

Freshman Grace Kenyon came up with some key steals to close out the half, 26-11.

“There are times you forget she’s a freshman, then there are times she quickly reminds you,” Lande said. “I thought she played really well at times.”

Kenyon posted 12 points on the night on six-for-eight shooting, and eight rebounds.

“For a kid who has never played a high school basketball game – she’s only played six now – I couldn’t be more happy,” Lande said. “She’s not refined yet, she’s a work in progress, but a very good work in progress.”

The Rams (0-3 in the Metro, 1-3 overall) came out fighting in the third quarter, outscoring the Spartans 14-7 and pulling within eight points.

“We kind of lost our way,” Lande said. “We stopped doing everything that we were doing in the first quarter and the second quarter.”

Senior Kas Totura gave the Spartans a spark in the fourth, breaking up two inbounds passes and scoring Bainbridge’s only three-pointers to go up 36-27.

“Kas understands the game and she made a couple of nice shots and two big threes when we really needed a three,” Lande said. “On defense, she got a couple of steals that were really critical at the time.”

The Spartans got tough on the boards to close out the fourth quarter, scoring six straight baskets from the paint.

Bainbridge will face top-ranked Holy Names (5-0 in the Metro, 5-1 overall) on the road at 7 p.m. Friday.

“They already know what they’re going to do to us,” Lande said. “Can we execute what we need to do a percentage of the time? If it’s 30 percent of the time we’re gonna get beaten real badly. Fifty percent, we’re going to lose. Seventy percent, we’re going to be in the game at the end.”