Girls basketball: La Salle-Peru runs past tiring Princeton

OTTAWA – It’s been all about the numbers for the La Salle-Peru girls basketball team this season.

If they add up in their favor they win, if they don’t, they lose.

Thursday saw the Cavaliers come out red-hot from the field, jumping out to a 34-20 halftime lead on their way to a runaway 58-37 victory over Princeton Thursday in the Lady Pirate Holiday Tournament in Ottawa. They finished shooting exactly 50% from the field, making 22 of 44 shots.

“That’s probably our best game of the year,” L-P coach Adam Spencer said. “We talked about putting more shots up. Saturday against Canton we only shot 35 times, and when you shoot 30% it’s hard to score. When you shoot 12 of 50, you lose. You shoot 22 of 44, you win. The difference of 10 shots is you win or lose. Twenty points.

“We’re 8-7 and I think we’ve only had two games within 20 points. [We] win by 20 or lose by 20.”

PHS coach Tiffany Gonigam said the Tigresses just couldn’t cool the Cavaliers off or slow them down.

“We didn’t have any answers defensively. We threw them everything we had. We’re a team that scores half of our points off turnovers. And we couldn’t get that happening tonight, so that really hindered everything.

“They were easily able to get through our press and that resulted in a lot of easy baskets for them.”

Princeton (11-4) just was not the same team that played Morris to a 47-45 defeat with a furious comeback less than 24 hours earlier, taking the floor Wednesday with tired legs.

“We went right down to the wire against Morris, a two-point game. We had to work really hard to get back in that game,” Gonigam said. “It’s not an excuse. I felt like we were a little bit slow on the press. We were just slow. We couldn’t get all the areas covered we need to, and they were just easily able to break it.”

Spencer, whose team had not played since splitting pool games with Pontiac and Canton on Saturday, acknowledged it was a tough turnaround for Princeton.

“That’s got to be tough for Princeton. They played last night, and we played two games Saturday,” he said. “They had the pool of death [with Morris and Newark]. All the games were within two points. So we had an extra day of rest.

“We came over to watch our sophomores [Wednesday] and watched Princeton. We knew they were going to press a little bit. We saw the zones. We knew we were going to have to take shots and make some 3s. It’s a make or miss thing.”

The Cavaliers used a 12-0 run to open up a 20-8 lead at the end of the first quarter, making six shots, including 3-pointers by Kaylee Abens and Jasmine Garman, and 8 of 12 free throws.

The Tigresses never made up the difference, but managed to play nearly even in the second and third quarters.

Princeton (11-4) picked it up for a 14-12 second quarter with Keighley Davis scoring seven points and Miyah Fox scoring five with a 3-pointer and a 2-pointer, making it a 34-20 game at the half.

Another near-even quarter in the third saw L-P gain a 9-8 advantage before breaking the game open by outscoring the tiring Tigresses 15-9 in the fourth with six players scoring.

L-P boasted a well-balanced scoring attack led by Addie Duttlinger (4 of 6 shooting) and Abens (5 of 8) with 13 points each and Bailey Pode (4 of 8) and Garman (4 of 8) with 10 points each, combining for a 17 of 30 shooting effort from the field.

Davis led the Tigresses with 15 points, but the Tigresses got no more than five (Fox and Paige Jesse) from anyone else.

Gonigam said the Tigresses will look to bounce back in Friday’s seventh-place game at 1:30 p.m. against Joliet Catholic and put this game behind them.

“I think we just need to just play our game,” she said. “Obviously [Thursday], we’re playing back-to-back games. We’ve got to come in fresh and just play with effort all the time. It’s tough when you play tired. Just execute where you’re supposed to and play hard.”

The Cavaliers will play IVC, a 56-53 winner over Joliet Catholic on Thursday, for fifth place at 3 p.m. Friday.