Lady Tigers elbowed in Carthage

Nevada's Lisa Pendrak takes an elbow from Carthage forward Meghan Waggoner in the first half of Tuesday's 36-26 loss. [Click to enlarge]

Nevada Daily Mail

CARTHAGE, Mo. -- Points were hard to come by in Tuesday's Southwest Conference battle between the Nevada Lady Tigers and the Carthage Lady Tigers.

Particularly for Nevada (9-6 overall, 1-3 in conference), as they lost their second straight, 36-26.

In a slow-paced game that wasn't really sloppy, both teams had trouble getting the ball to drop.

The score was 11-9 at the end of the first quarter, and 18-14 at halftime.

The low output can be credited to both teams' shooting woes, as Nevada only committed six turnovers in the half, and Carthage (12-4, 3-1) only had two.

"I saw it yesterday in practice," Nevada head coach Brent Bartlett said. "We just aren't shooting well right now. I saw the effort there."

Bartlett was happy with Nevada only giving up 36 points to a potentially explosive Carthage group.

"The defense is absolutely tremendous," he said.

The highlight of the game for Nevada was the beginning of the game when they jumped out to a 7-2 lead. Carthage head coach Bobby Waggoner called a timeout with 5:17 to play in the opening period, and Nevada up by five.

Erica Klinksick and Lindsay Rice each scored in the opening run, and Lisa Pendrak hit a trey in Nevada's jaunt.

After the timeout, the air came out of the basketball.

Nevada managed only two more points the rest of the period, and only scored five points in the second, as their season-low 14 first-half points truly represented how much the Lady Tigers are struggling from the field.

Luckily for them, Carthage was faring no better, as they led by only four at the break.

In the second half Carthage moved from stagnant to a crawl, while Nevada appeared stuck in quicksand, only scoring six points in each of the final two quarters.

Carthage led by as many as 10 in the second half, going up 32-22 with about six minutes left in the game. Each team only scored two more buckets the rest of the way.

Bartlett said Nevada is still adjusting to losing leading scorer Afton Baldwin for the season.

"You have to have kids step up when a player goes down," he said. "I see some kids trying and I see some kids maybe not wanting to (step up)."

Bartlett said some changes in offensive philosophy might be in store.

"I'm going to have to redefine that offensively," he said. "Who do we want shooting?"

Nevada will have plenty of time to figure out what they want to do, as they have no more games this week, and they have the Lady Tiger Classic in Nevada next week. Pleasant Hill, Carthage and Joplin are the only schools in the eight-team field that look to provide even a test for Nevada.

Nevada will not have another conference game until Feb. 7, when they host Neosho.