Southwest Valley girls pick up a win at Lenox

 Lenox — The Southwest Valley girls’ basketball team improved to 6-10 on the season with an easy win over Lenox.

Coach Allen Naugle said the team started fast and “had an amazing first quarter.”

The team forced turnovers and got several points as a result.

“We were able to get out in transition and scored a lot of lay-ups as a result,” Naugle said.

Naugle was worried about focus and intensity for the Monday night game, but said the team came out focused and ready to play.

As a result, the team led 46-15 at the half. But after that, the teams played almost even, 18-17 in the second half.

“We were still able to play great defense, but started to force things on offense. We definitely need to continue to work on protecting the ball and not forcing passes in our half-court offense,” Naugle said.

Though the stat sheets indicate no fouls, Naugle said the team had too many in the game, “but a lot of that was the result of how aggressive the girls were playing.”

Morgan Suey led the team with 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting, including three from beyond the arc. Miah Hummel was next with 15 points, and Danica Sunderman had 10. Hummel led the team in rebounds with 11, but also in turnovers with 12.

Shuey also led the team in steals with 7. Overall, the team had 23 steals.

Kaitlyn Shad led the team in assists with 3.

“This was a great start to our week and (we) look forward to the challenge of preparing for two great conference opponents …” Naugle said.

Southwest Valley 53, Central Decatur, 78

Bouncing back after a tough loss against Bedford, the Southwest Valley girls put forth a more consistent effort Friday against Central Decatur.

“We came out and played well the entire night,” coach Naugle said. “We did a lot of good things offensively. We did a nice job of creating turnovers and we did a better job controlling our turnovers.”

Unfortunately, Central Decatur scored 57 points in the first half alone — compared to Southwest Valley’s 24 — on what Naugle described as “extremely impressive shooting, transition offense and creating a few turnovers with their press.”

The Timberwolves won the second half, 29-21, but the damage from the first half was too much to overcome.

“We played hard the entire game and tried to fight to keep up, but were unable to,” he said. “We were able to slow them down some in the second half when they pulled their press off, but we were already behind by too much to make a solid comeback.

Southwest Valley certainly wasn’t lacking for shot selection Friday, with 64 shots attempted, but completion of 22 for 34 percent shooting on the night.

The Timberwolves turned the ball over 24 times, but also had 10 steals on the night. Shuey led the team in scoring, with 11 points, followed by Danica Sunderman with 10. Shanna Saunders led the team in rebounding with 5.

Southwest 39, Bedford 55

The Southwest Valley girls got off to a very slow start against Bedford and fell to the visiting team 39-55.

The game got off to a difficult start for the Timberwolves, who were scoreless in the first quarter. That combined with a tough shooting night — Southwest Valley was 10-of-56 from the field, including 7-of-32 field goal attempts.

“Earlier in the season we allowed Bedford’s press to dictate the game,” head coach Allen Naugle said. “Tonight we were able to do a much better job handling their press and not allowing our turnovers to hurt us as much as they did the first game.”

Naugle noted that both teams battled throughout the game.

“We were able to keep fighting throughout the game, made enough plays to stay in the game,” he said.

Despite a difficult first half, the Timberwolves went into the locker room down just 11 points.

“I felt as though if we could just get hot on  offense, we had a good shot to compete for the win,” he said. “We did a nice job rebounding and did a great job forcing turnovers.”

Southwest Valley stole the ball 15 times and turned it over 29.

“The girls did everything I asked of them, but we just couldn’t get the shots to drop at a consistent rate. We were getting open looks, but struggled to make big shots.”

Morgan Shuey led the team with 15 points, while  Elizabeth Herzbert led with 11 rebounds.

“Bedford is an extremely talented team and tonight the girls gave them everything they had,” Naugle said. “We just weren’t able to get enough shots to drop to get the win.”

The Timberwolves record now stands at 6-11 overall.