Prep Hoops: Inspired Effort
After an opening with a win over Carmi-White County at the Harrisburg Invitational Tournament, the Eldorado girls' basketball team staggered with a couple of sub-par performances the rest of the week against Anna-Jonesboro and West Frankfort, where the Eagles shot 23 and 29 percent in a pair of losses.
Eldorado head coach Scott Artman even admitted going into Saturday night's cross-country tilt with Harrisburg that he had premonitions of a year ago, where Eldorado went 1-3 at the Harrisburg Invite.
Harrisburg head coach Jake Stewart had his own concerns entering Saturday night's affair with Eldorado. The Bulldogs were already 3-0, but Stewart's concerns were mounting over that period.
After the dust settled, the Eagles gave Artman an inspired performance with a 72-59 win, handing the Bulldogs their first loss of the season.
The silver lining was that Harrisburg still won the Harrisburg Invitational, sharing a 3-1 record with West Frankfort, but holding the tie breaker after beating the Redbirds 73-50.
The Harrisburg Invitational started in 1985, where the Bulldogs had never won its own tournament, until its first win in 2012. That began a run of championships where Harrisburg has taken home top honors three out of the last four seasons.
The game consisted of 14 lead changes - 10 of which came in the first half - when Eldorado took a 34-29 lead into the locker room, this after leading 18-15 after the first quarter.
"That's a very inspiring win," Artman said. "We came into this tournament and we beat Carmi that first night and then we turned out and lost to Anna-Jonesboro and West Frankfort with just not very good efforts. I had premonitions of what happened to us last year, coming over here and going 1-3 and knew we were going up against a very good Harrisburg team. In practice, we really didn't know if we could play with them or not, but my kids finally stepped up (Saturday) and played like they were capable of."
For Stewart, it was his team's defense that let him down after being pretty staunch in the early going of the tournament, holding West Frankfort to 50 points, Carmi to 44 and Anna-Jonesboro to 26. The Bulldogs won those games by 23, 4 and 35 points.
"We gave up too many points. We just didn't defend well and we put them on the free throw line way to much. Offensively, we shot 23 percent from the field and we still scored 59 points. We just didn't guard anyone tonight.
"We just played timid tonight," Stewart said. "We talked about not letting (Jacqlyn) Artman catching the ball in the paint and (Abby) Steed got to the basket way too much. We talked about that. We just didn't execute."
To his point, Artman led all scorers with 26 points, while Steed had 23 to also finish in double figures, as did Caitlyn Stafford, who finished with 15 on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor and 2-of-3 from 3-point range.
As a team, Eldorado shot 26-for-45 from the field for 57 percent and went 15-of-28 from the foul line for 53 percent.
Harrisburg was led by Alexa Burtis' 24 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the field, while Kelsey Hobbs had 18 for the Bulldogs.
No lead seemed safe Saturday as the two exchanged blows like a pair of MMA fighters in a cage. The knockout punch for Stewart said after his team was down by nine points and managed to tie the game at 44-all on a Hobbs' bucket, he then saw Eldorado rattle off nine points after Caitlyn Stafford connected on a 3-pointer and Steed scored six straight to push the lead to 53-44. Eldorado closed out the third quarter, leading 53-46 and never looked back.
"We knew that we would make a run and get back in the ballgame and when we were down by nine and came back to tie it at 44," Stewart said. "I remember after they took that last lead at 46-44, we had two or three shots where we could have taken the lead and they didn't go. At that point, I started to worry a little bit."
Artman had a very similar message to his group at halftime about runs in the game of basketball.
"At halftime, whatever it is we were up by, I told the kids, 'basketball is a game of runs, it's coming in the third quarter. What's going to determine if we win or lose this game is how we handle that run.'"
The surprise for Artman was how his team actually responded.
"With my team and they way they have been playing this year, just the general attitude and the wanting to play together and hustle - they wanted this ballgame," he said.
Rachel Stafford finished with four points for Eldorado, while Olivia Parker had two points.
Harrisburg got six points from Matty Hawkins, while Lilee Robinson finished with four points. Lotte Miller, Toni Crisp and Jenny Buchanan all had two points, while Hannah Bartok tossed in a free throw.
Harrisburg returns to action Tuesday at West Frankfort and will play at Galatia on Wednesday night. The Bulldogs close out the week with one last road game at Union County, Ky., Saturday at 6 p.m.
Eldorado will travel to Gallatin County on Tuesday and then play host to Carmi-White County on Thursday.
All-Tournament Team
Kelsey Hobbs, Alexa Burtis and Hannah Bartok represented Harrisburg on the All-Tournament team. Eldorado's Abby Steed, Jacqlyn Artman and Takiya Britton were also on the team. The six were joined by West Frankfort's Morgan Griffith and Terrilyann Summers, along with Anna-Jonesboro's Lexa Sharp and Elle Basler. Carmi-White County's duo of Morgan Combs and Abby Vaughn completed the list.
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
Eldorado 18 16 19 19 - 72
Harrisburg 15 14 17 13 - 59
Eldorado (2-2): Peavler 1-3 0-4 2, C. Stafford 5-8 3-4 15, Steed 10-13 2-3 23, Parker 1-3 0-3 2, R. Stafford 1-3 2-2 4, Artman 8-15 8-12 26. Totals: 26-45 15-28 72.
Harrisburg (3-1): Bartok 0-0 1-2 1, Burtis 9-19 3-5 24, Hawkins 3-4 0-1 6, Miller 1-10, 0-0 2, Hobbs 7-29, 3-4 18, Crisp 1-2 0-0 2, Robinson 1-2 2-4 4, Buchanan 1-1 0-0 2. Totals: 23-67 9-16 59.
3-point FG: ELD 5-8 (Peavler 0-1, C. Stafford 2-3, Steed 1-1, R. Stafford 0-1, Artman 2-2). HBG 4-24 (Burtis 3-8, Miller 0-6, Hobbs 1-10). Rebounds: ELD 35, HBG 33. Fouls: ELD 16, HBG 19.