Lady M’s fight Bulldogs, uncooperative nets

• Homer falls 30-38 in non-conference season opener

By Sean Pearson
Homer Tribune

During much of the Lady Mariners’ home game against Nikiski on Saturday, the Alice Witte Gymnasium basketball hoops seemed determined to deny baskets for their home team.
Despite putting up more than twice the shots as the Lady Bulldogs – many of them high-percentage – the Lady M’s struggled to get the ball to fall in their non-conference, 38-30 opening loss to Nikiski.
Nevertheless, Homer Head Coach Deb Lowney can see nothing but good things ahead for her Lady Mariners.
“I was very pleased with the intensity we entered the game with,” she said. “The team appeared to be focused and prepared for the challenge.”
According to Lowney, the team showed good aggressiveness defensively, but had some communication breakdowns in their rotations that led to easy Nikiski baskets.
“If we can get stronger at communicating and understanding the concepts we are trying to utilize, I think we will turn into a pretty sound defensive team,” Lowney said.
One of the Lowney’s bright points was her team’s ability to force Nikiski into committing turnovers. On the flip side, however, she expressed frustration that Homer created its own turnovers through poor execution of the basics.
“We had some bad jump stops and forced passes,” she said. “Sloppy play on the offensive end made that portion of our game difficult. We really rushed everything we did on the offensive end.”
And while the Lady M’s showed no fear of taking the ball to the hoop, the hoops were less than friendly.
“We out shot Nikiski more than 2-1. That was awesome. Unfortunately our shooting percentage was extremely low,” Lowney explained. “We need to keep taking those shots, but we need to be shooting relaxed and under control. Calm composure is something we will work on in practice for sure.”
Lowney said the Lady M’ offense is really non-existent right now, as her young athletes struggle to get “in-sync” on that end of the court.
“Part of that will come from running an offensive pattern, but part will come from kids improving their own ability to read the defense and create an offense based on what the defense gives them.”
The team is spending this week’s practices on offensive rebounding.
“We had very few second-effort shots,” she said. “We need to attack our offensive boards. Offensive boards are all about desire.”
They Lady Mariners travel to Cordova soon, and Lowney assures that her team will be ready.
 I can see already from our first practice this week, that we are ready to move forward,” she said. “Homer did not see our best this weekend, but I am convinced we will to put this all together and create some pretty outstanding games this year. The energy is good, and we are working so hard, it will pay off.”

Varsity Girls
Homer 30, Nikiski 38

Homer 6 11 6 7 30
Nikiski 9 9 8 12 38

Homer: Ketelle, 1 1-2 3; Tutt, 1 0-0 2; Edens, 0 1-2 1; Needham, 4 3-6 11; Stafford, 3 0-0 6; Cordova 2 0-0 4; Wood, 1 1-3 3.
Nikiski: Griffeth, 1 2-4 4; D. Holloway, 3 0-3 6; Johnson 3 2-2 8; T. Holloway, 0 2-4 2; Parish, 1 3-4 5; Moore, 4 5-6 13.
Fouled out: Ketelle, Wood.

JV Girls
Homer 25, Nikiski 31

Homer 8 5 12 0 25
Nikiski 6 11 4 10 31

Homer: Edens, 3 1-3 7; Isenhour, 1 0-0 2; Beach, 1 1-1 4; Oliver 5 0-1 10.
Nikiski: Epperheimer, 0 1-2 1; D. Holloway, 2 0-6 4; Dixon 1 0-2 2; Tuttle, 3 5-13 11; T. Holloway, 3 0-6 6; Martin, 3 1-2 7.

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Posted by Newsroom on Dec 16th, 2009 and filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.