Girard girls hand Fort Scott 22-point setback

Kenny Felt/Captured Images Fort Scott's Courtney Carpenter (14) drives against Girard's Kenzie Dunlap during the first half of play Friday night at the FSHS gymnasium. Carpenter scored a season-high 7 points for the Tigers but it was not enough to prevent Girard from taking a 55-33 victory. [Click to enlarge]

FORT SCOTT -- Fort Scott High School girls' head coach Jeff Armstrong did not like what he saw from his team Friday night.

What Armstrong saw was a team that wasn't ready to play one of the top teams in Southeast Kansas and on that was unable to play well whenever Jolee Sharp was on the bench with foul trouble.

Even though the Tigers got within four points early in the third quarter despite a horrible first half, a Girard tear late in that period while Sharp was on the bench with her fourth foul led to a 55-33 rout in favor of the Trojans.

"Girard played a really good game," Armstrong said. "They had players playing hard and executing. They took away some things that we wanted to do. Give them the credit because they were ready to play and we weren't."

This was the widest margin of defeat this season for the Tigers (5-5), two points more than in a 55-53 loss to Chanute back on January 5.

Having played the night before against Iola, Girard (8-1) came out in a defensive mindset. While the Trojans scored only 6 points in the first quarter, they held the Tigers without a field goal in the period and forced them into 10 turnovers.

The result: A 6-1 lead after one period that grew to 13-2 before the Tigers finally got their first field goal of the game from Sharp on a steal with 3:34 left in the first half.

Fort Scott got within 20-13 at the half after Megan McDermed converted the "old-fashioned" 3-point play with 12.7 seconds remaining.

In the third, Courtney Carpenter's layup with just under six minutes to go cut the deficit to 4 points for the first time, 23-19. The teams traded baskets for the next couple of minutes with Jenna Campbell scoring a pair of layups, the second of which cut the margin to 27-23 with 4:57 to go.

Sharp, who had drawn her fourth foul early in the period but played for a bit during this exchange of points, went back to the bench to avoid the risk of fouling out. Girard then went on a 16-0 run to end the period with a 43-23 lead.

"I felt like there were times when Jo was in foul trouble, we were looking for someone else to step up and no one did," Armstrong said. "We need to have that because other teams are going to start taking her out of the game and others have to step up. We didn't have that tonight."

The largest Trojan lead was 23 points, 49-26, after starting the fourth quarter with a 6-3 run.

"We didn't play very smart," Armstrong said. "They're a good team and they deserved the win. I'd really have liked to see us put a little bit more effort in, execute a little better. Especially when we get into sticky situations, I'd like to see us buckle down a little bit better."

Carly Twarog finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead Girard while Morgan Boore added 9 points. Sharp finished with 11 points but took only three shots from the field in the first three periods as the Trojan defense and her foul problems combined to inhibit her. Carpenter and McDermed each scored 7 points.

Girard shot 47 percent from the field, making 23 of 49 field-goal attempts. They made 21 of 36 shots in the final three periods. Fort Scott made only 24 percent of its shots on 10 of 41 and didn't hit on six 3-point attempts.

The Trojans outrebounded the Tigers, 40-28, as Kyle Kunshek also grabbed 10 boards. McDermed and Mallory Shelton each had 5 caroms for Fort Scott.

Fort Scott hosts a Southeast Kansas League make-up game against Parsons Monday night at 6 p.m. After that, they'll have over a week off before going to Coffeyville on January 26.

"We'll get beat by 20 if we play like that against Parsons," Armstrong said. "The girls need to figure out over the weekend what they need to do to play consistently. We talked about how good teams play consistent and anyone can play up and down all year. Right now, we're on a roller-coaster ride of playing well, then playing poor. You have to stay solid, night in, night out."

JUNIOR VARSITY -- Girard rallied for a 40-39 victory in the junior varsity contest. Campbell led the Tigers with 8 points while Jenna Harper and Tiera Floyd each scored 6. The Tiger JV plays Parsons Monday at 4:30 at the FSHS gymnasium.