BASKETBALL: Offense fails to show up for Du Quoin
A sluggish start and an overall lackluster performance offensively spoiled a fantastic defensive effort by Du Quoin in Wednesday's game against Johnston City, as the Tip-Off Classic hosts fell 31-27 in a battle of Lady Indians on day two of the tournament.
Johnston City held Du Quoin to just two first quarter field goals and led 9-4, then built on that lead in the second to take a 20-11 lead into the break. The lead got as high as 11 at 24-13 in the third quarter, but Du Quoin would find a way to get back into the game.
Playing without Mackenzie Jackson, who will miss several games with a finger injury, and without Grace Haney, who suffered a knee injury in the first half, Du Quoin somehow found a way to out-rebound Johnston City despite a sizable height disadvantage.
"We had to crash the boards, because we knew that had two kids that were six-foot tall," said DHS head coach Shawn File. "(Bailee) Pulley is such a good driver that we wanted to try to make her shoot, but if you play too much off of her she's able to pick people apart and not have to go off the drive. Some adjustments we tried to make worked, some didn't work. Defensively I've always said that 40 is the magic number, and this is one of only a handful of games that we've lost when we held somebody to under 40. Defensively we were really good tonight, we just couldn't score."
A 6-0 run cut Johnston City's lead to five midway through the third quarter, but a buzzer-beating jumper by Ashley Smiley ended the period and made it 27-19.
Du Quoin refused to go away, though, as Kate Smith and Sadie Day put in buckets to bring DHS within 4 early in the final frame. But in the end, cold shooting - particularly from the free throw line (7-for-17) and three-point line (0-for-15) caught up with the tournament-host Lady Indians.
"We have some girls that can knock (three-pointers) down, tonight they just didn't go," said File. "We were just a little bit off tonight. The more I coach, the more I see that if you make layups and free throws, typically you win the ball game. We didn't get a lot of layup opportunities tonight. We got a lot of them against Steeleville (on Monday), but Johnston City did a really good job with their bigs of not letting us get them. We were maybe a little intimidated with their size. We threw some things up off balance. Overall, from an effort standpoint, I'll go to war with those 12 kids every night."
Johnston City struggled from the free throw line as well (5-for-15), but had just enough offense to hang on despite being outscored 16-11 in the second half.
Day led Du Quoin with 9 points, Smith had 8, Jordyn Bullar and Alaina Caldwell had 3 apiece, and Haney and Kat Robison both finished with 2. Nicole Johnson led Johnston City with 9 points, Paige Rich added 8.
DHS (1-1) meets Woodlawn (1-1) at 8 p.m. on Friday night, then takes on Elverado (0-2) at 10 a.m. and Murphysboro (2-0) at 7 p.m. on Saturday.