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Lady Tigers trample Harrisonville on the road
By Joe Warren
Nevada Daily Mail
Lindsay Rice and Jordan Webb scored 12 points apiece and spurred a second-half charge that led the Nevada Lady Tigers over the Harrisonville Lady Wildcats Thursday, 50-28.
Leading by only four after an uninspired first half, the Lady Tigers finally got things going offensively late in the third quarter.
Harrisonville had come within two after a bucket by Kayli Pozniak as Nevada continued their offensive futility early in the the third period.
The Lady Tigers needed over three minutes to score their first bucket of the second half. Rice finally scored on a layup with 4:57 left in the quarter to give Nevada a 22-18 lead.
After a turnover by Harrisonville, Amanda Wilson buried a three (the only 3-pointer of the game for Nevada) and that was followed by a Jenna Scavuzzo Harrisonville basket to make it 25-20.
That's when Nevada woke up. Webb scored to give Nevada a seven-point lead, and Rice struck again as the third quarter came to an end, putting Nevada up 29-20.
In the fourth quarter Afton Baldwin got in on the action. Baldwin, who played sparingly the first three quarters because of foul trouble, scored the first four points of the final period to give Nevada some breathing room.
Webb made two field goals and Tori Miller added one to put the game completely out of reach at 39-20.
Harrisonville didn't convert a field goal until less than a minute remained in the fourth quarter, as Nevada continued their second-half onslaught by going up 48-24. In all, Harrisonville only scored 12 second-half points.
Nevada's defense led to their offensive outburst, as they created 14 second-half turnovers, 10 of them in the final stanza. The defensive effort was led by Baldwin, who seemed to be the catalyst on both ends of the court.
"We need Afton on the floor," Nevada head coach Brent Bartlett said. "It just helps our flow because she's so athletic."
Webb and Rice were the only players on either team to reach double figures in scoring.
"Jordan Webb, I thought, really hit some big shots tonight," Bartlett said. "We have a really balanced team. It seems like when you have five players on the floor who can score at any time, you're potent."
Bartlett said Thursday's game was a sample of what the two sophomore inside players are capable of.
"This is a night when our posts really had a good game," he said.
Playing their fifth game in eight days, the Lady Tigers looked every bit weary for the first 19 minutes of the game.
Nevada struggled shooting from the outside as Wilson, Baldwin and Lisa Pendrak all had trouble knocking down jumpers.
Halftime arrived with Nevada clinging to a 20-16 lead.
Bartlett admitted that his team looked out of sync, particularly in the first half.
"We were real flat," he said. "We were flat probably the first three, maybe four minutes of the third quarter,"
Bartlett couldn't explain how, but he noticed the intensity in his team rise suddenly midway through the third.
"It was like someone finally took the cover off the rim," he said.
Baldwin, who had three fouls in the first quarter, could have been the reason for the second-half surge.
While Erica Klinksick started in her place to start the third quarter, Baldwin was inserted into the lineup late in the period, and Nevada started scoring in bunches.
Her influence was most evident in the start of the fourth period, when she scored, stole the ball on the defensive end, and scored again, extending Nevada's lead to double digits for the first time in the game.
Baldwin wasn't the only Lady Tiger to struggle with fouls. After playing in a tournament that dictated physical play last weekend, Nevada was dealt an officiating crew that called the game closely on Thursday.
"We had to adjust to the officiating and we had to get a rhythm offensively," Bartlett said.
Nevada will open Southwest Conference play when they visit Neosho Tuesday. It will be their final game before the Carthage tournament begins Jan. 2.