Lady Trojans' rally falls short against Fort Scott

FORT SCOTT, Kan. -- Carla Twarog tried as best she could but Girard's girls were in too deep of a hole to complete a furious rally and fell to Fort Scott High, 50-39, at the FSHS gymnasium Friday night.

Twarog didn't miss a shot in the fourth quarter, scoring 14 of her game-high 18 points in the period, including 10 straight for the Trojans at one point. But Fort Scott (6-4) went into the period with a 42-19 advantage and, fortunately, it held up.

"I feel like we out-played them 31 minutes of the ball game," Fort Scott head coach Jeff Armstrong said. "About six minutes left, with a 20-point lead, you feel a little comfortable. I wanted to get some girls some playing time. Girard pressed us hard and we had a hard time breaking it and forced us to go back to our starters. The starters got back in and were able to finish the game strong."

More often than not, a 20-point lead is safe even when the team ahead subs in. But someone didn't pass the memo along to Twarog, whose personal 10-point run narrowed the deficit from 44-20 with 6:40 to go down to 45-30 with 2:31 left.

Twarog's seventh basket of the period in as many shots brought the Trojans (8-2) within 47-39 with 52 seconds left to go. Fortunately, there wasn't enough time left to finish the rally.

"She is a good player," Armstrong said. "But the starters held her to four points. When I look at the film, I won't be looking at the fourth quarter because I had players in there who aren't typically in the ball game. The top eight or nine players did a great job defensively on a very good team like Girard."

The Tigers scored the game's first 10 points and led 18-3 after one period of play, holding Girard to one-of-11 field-goal shooting in the period. Kori Page Rienbolt scored six of Fort Scott's first 10 while Jolee Spark scored the final four of the quarter.

Fort Scott's press was doing its usual bit of business, forcing six turnovers in the first quarter, then seven in the second. Although the Tigers' offense cooled down, they still held a 30-10 lead at the break.

Fort Scott's biggest lead of 24 points was gained when Rienbolt's layup made it 44-20 with 6:40 remaining in the contest. Rienbolt and Gray each scored 12 points to lead the Tigers while Jolee Sharp scored 10 points and led Fort Scott with 11 rebounds, four assists and five steals. No one else scored more than six points for Girard. The Tigers shot 40 percent from the field as they made 16 of 40 field-goal attempts. They were also 16 of 23 at the free-throw line. The Trojans shot 36 percent from the floor on 16 of 45 but were just seven of 14 at the charity stripe.

The Tigers also outrebounded Girard, 34-31. Fort Scott won the junior varsity contest, 47-45, as Breianna Jones scored 19 points and Monica Dikeman added 11.

The Tiger freshmen fell to Girard, 48-30. Jenna Campbell led Fort Scott with 11 points.

Fort Scott now faces an unusually-long mid-season break, brought about by the fact that the Southeast Kansas League's new double-round robin schedule leaves enough room in the regular season for only one tournament and the Tigers have already appeared in theirs after going to Willard in December. They'll be idle until Jan. 21 when the varsity and junior varsity teams face Columbus at Fort Scott while the freshmen play Uniontown that night. The JV and frosh games will be held at Fort Scott Middle School.

"We still have to practice hard," Armstrong said. "Everyone else will be playing games while we aren't, so we have to treat a couple of these days this week as game days. We'll take an opportunity to catch our breath but then we have to get right back into league and we'll have some tough games."