Merritt - The Hydro-Eakly Lady Bobcats took a trip west along Interstate 40 to Merritt, where they won 57-40.
Despite winning by 17 points, coach Jeremy Tharp said the team played sloppy at times and had too many turnovers and mistakes, but was pleased with winning by double digits on the road.
“Give Merritt credit, they forced some turnovers we normally do not make,” Tharp said. “They forced us into bad shots. Our goal is to make other teams look sloppy and they did that to us. We made some great plays, but we would make a sloppy pass or turn the ball over. We were close to having a really good game, but we were just sloppy for the goals we want to achieve.”
The game was tied, 8-8, in the first quarter. Hydro-Eakly built a 13-point lead at halftime and Tharp said the game opened up right before halftime.
“We had several chances to really take command,” Tharp said. “But then, the uncharacteristic mistakes would come and we would not play our best ball.” Hydro-Eakly built on their lead and won the game 57-40.
“At times, we were ahead by more than 20 points in the third quarter, but we got lazy on defense, giving them easy baskets,” Tharp said. “One time, they scored 8 points off of easy layups because we did not rotate.”
Rees Berkey scored 18 points and had several rebounds and steals. Merritt scored 29 of their points on free throws. Tharp said there were highs and lows all night.
“Since they scored so many points, that shows we did not move our feet on defense,” Tharp said. “The positive thing is we are working and getting better. There were about 10 plays in which we did not execute. We won by 17 points so we obviously played hard. We just need to clean up some of our mistakes.”
Tharp said the girls off the bench came in and made some plays and they played aggressive.
“I felt like the bench played well,” Tharp said. “Tessa York played well as she was aggressive and rebounded well. Paisley Vickery played her best game on both sides of the basketball. She made plays on offense and got some big stops on defense.”
Hydro-Eakly is 7-0 going into Christmas break and they scrimmaged Silo Tuesday in preparation for the Mustang Holiday Classic next week,
“I figured that scrimmage was as good of a match as I could find preparing for the Mustang tournament,” Tharp said. “Most of the teams we will face play very physical and very good defense. Silo fits that mold for us.”
Hydro-Eakly will play December 28 in the Mustang Holiday Classic. Their first game is 7 p.m. against tournament host Mustang.
“We are going to have to play in control and control them,” Tharp said. “If we let them play their style of basketball and let them get comfortable, we will really struggle because Mustang is a good and very physical basketball team.”