The Bradford Lady Owls are a young basketball team, and as young teams are prone to do, they struggled to play a complete game on Saturday against Cameron County.
The Lady Owls fell to the Lady Raiders 61-51 to wrap up what’s been a busy (and disappointing) week, coming off losses to North East on Wednesday and Brookville on Friday.
Despite playing a solid first half, Bradford was undone by a big run by Cameron County to start the second half that the Lady Owls couldn’t recover from.
In what had to be a welcome sign for coach Bob Hannon, the Owls played terrific defense in the first quarter, limiting the Raiders to just five points in the first eight minutes. That shutdown ‘D’ led to easy scoring chances to give Bradford a 12-5 lead after one.
Leading the way early and often was Bri Wells, who scored 10 of her game-high 31 points in the first quarter.
Cameron County soon found their stride offensively, though, starting the second quarter on a 6-0 run thanks to some great passing that led to easy buckets in the paint.
As for the Owls, their offense went missing entirely in the second quarter. Seemingly every shot from the field went off the rim, as Bradford didn’t record their first points of the quarter until the 3:30 mark of the period.
Coach Hannon saw that cold spell as being a big turning point in the game.
“We got plenty of looks at the basket,” he said. “Especially in the first half, we had a ton of looks, we just couldn’t put the ball in. Put some of those in, maybe you’re up 10, 12, 14 points, it’s a totally different game. Maybe they have to change the way they’re doing things.”
The Owls retook the lead with just over a minute left in the half, and a pair of late baskets from Wells and Sam Gross (six points total) gave Bradford a 25-20 halftime lead.
But those missed first-half opportunities would come back to haunt the Owls.
Cameron County’s great ball movement was on full display as they came out of the break with a plan and executed it to perfection, starting the second half on a 17-4 run. They were paced by several three-pointers from Alyvia McKimm (14 points), plus solid performances from Madison Harrier (16) and Laila Smith (13)
“We cut down our turnovers,” Cameron County coach Dave Sullivan said. “We’ve been really struggling with turnovers recently. We got some good looks and we made some shots today.”
The Raiders amped up their defense as well, allowing very few open looks for Hannon’s squad.
“It’s the same thing we’ve been telling them all along: we can’t afford to make mental mistakes, and when you make mental mistakes, good teams take advantage of that,” he said.
The Owls went into the fourth quarter down 41-32, where their offensive struggles continued. Bradford simply wasn’t able to find any kind of rhythm. Their passing and shot selection was too indecisive, leaving to several instances where they forced to throw up an ill-advised or off-balance shot.
Cameron County held a 10-point lead with under two minutes to go. From that point on, the Raiders were able to salt the game away by getting to the free throw line.
“We’ve been struggling from the free throw line, but today we finished our shots,” Sullivan said.
The Owls’ defense — so stingy in the early going — wasn’t able to come up with the necessary shots late in the game.
“We were out of position on several occasions,” Hannon said. “We weren’t quick enough reacting to the ball.”
When that happened the Owls were forced to foul the opposition, who made the most of their chances, going 18 for 30 from the free thrown line.
“They got to the free throw line a lot more than we did, but that’s not an excuse,” Hannon said. “For whatever reason we broke down too many times out there.”
When asked if his players were getting discouraged that so many of their shots weren’t going in, Hannon tried to keep the focus on the larger picture.
“You’re always worried about them being discouraged,” he said. “I want them to be discouraged in where our record is, not discouraged in how we play.”
Bradford (1-12) will be on the road Wednesday when it faces DuBois in a D-9 League game.
