Girls basketball: Up and down La Salle-Peru falls short in 5th-place game at Ottawa

OTTAWA — The La Salle-Peru girls basketball team got off to a dismal start in Friday’s fifth-place game against Illinois Valley Central at the Ottawa Lady Pirate Holiday Tournament.

The Cavaliers didn’t score in the opening quarter, missing all 10 field goal attempts, and trailed by 14.

L-P regrouped and cut the deficit to eight at halftime. It then battled all the way back to take brief one-point leads in both the third and fourth quarters, but eventually fell 43-40 with Addie Duttlinger’s 40-foot desperation shot at the final horn for the tie just rimming off.

“Was that Jekyll or Hyde or what?” L-P coach Adam Spencer said. “The games that we have lost all season we’ve come out flat. It’s a mopey day, it’s raining outside, we don’t have school, so we all went to breakfast to try and wake them up. Obviously, it didn’t work.

“This game was a microcosm of our season so far, drastic ups and downs. This is only the third game we’ve played in that has been decided by less than 15 points win or lose.”

The effort has been there all season, but we make too many silly mistakes, don’t take care of the basketball at times, and get too down on ourselves when a couple shots don’t fall. That was all the case again today.”

—  Adam Spencer, La Salle-Peru girls basketball coach

The Cavaliers (8-8) hit just 4 of 25 shots in the opening half and finished 13 of 47 (28%) for the contest, while IVC made good on 56% (14 of 25) of its chances from the floor.

“We shot 16 3s in the first half and only made two, that’s not a good percentage,” Spencer said. “We had two 3s and one two in the first half, but still only were down eight. We didn’t score the entire first quarter and were still in the game going to the second half. We were very fortunate.”

Jasmine Garman scored 10 points, including a trio of 3-pointers, in the early stages of the third, while Duttinger’s short jumper gave the Cavs a 23-22 lead with 4:42 on the clock.

But the rest of the quarter was all Grey Ghosts as they closed it out on a 13-4 run to lead 35-27 heading to the fourth.

“We went full-court pressure to start the second half, created a few turnovers, and Jasmine made a couple 3-point shots to get us back in it,” Spencer said. “The effort has been there all season, but we make too many silly mistakes, don’t take care of the basketball at times, and get too down on ourselves when a couple shots don’t fall. That was all the case again today.”

In a 40-second span in the middle of the fourth, 3s by Kaylee Abens and Elli Sines sandwiched around a nifty drive by Addison Urbanski closed the gap again, this time to 39-38.

But IVC countered with a 3-point play from Kayt Miller and a free throw by Mackenzie Mercer to push the lead to 43-38.

L-P cut the deficit to three with five seconds left on an offensive rebound hoop by Bailey Pode, then out of the Cavaliers’ last timeout, fouled IVC’s Sage Geltmaker with three seconds left.

Geltmaker misfired on bothfree throws, the second rebounded by Urbanski, who turned and fired a pass to Duttlinger for her final attempt.

Garman scored a game-best 12 points for L-P, while Duttlinger – an all-tournament selection – added eight points and Pode had six points and a team-high seven rebounds. IVC was paced by Mercer’s 10 points and nine each from Geltmaker (six rebounds) and Miller (eight rebounds).

“We came into the season with limited experience, but now we are 16 games in, and some of the mistakes we make shouldn’t be happening a week or so from the new year,” Spencer said. “We have some time off now, so hopefully we can come back in January and be recharged for the remainder of the season.”

La Salle-Peru is off until Jan. 3, when it travels to Rochelle for an Interstate 8 Conference contest.