ARCANUM – The Arcanum Lady Trojans dropped an overtime heartbreaker to the visiting Greenon Lady Nights in Monday night non-conference varsity basketball action, with the teams combining for twenty 3-pointers, 13 by the Lady Knights and seven by Arcanum.
“We came out ready to play,” said Arcanum coach Abbey Moore. “It was some good, clean basketball. We had opportunities to put them away and extend that lead, but we just couldn’t do that. They were able to come up with big plays to cut our momentum.”
The visiting Lady Knights scored 13 points in both the first and second quarters, 14 points in each of the third and fourth quarters, and earned the win, taking the overtime period 11-7 in securing the victory.
The Lady Trojans jumped out to a 19-13 first-quarter advantage led by 10 Alexis Gibbons’ points, including two 3-pointers.
Greenon battled back to knot the score at 23-23 with 4:50 on the second quarter board before a Matty Noe triple and a Caroline Long drive to the basket gave Arcanum a 28-23 lead at 2:45. A Greenon three was answered with a Caroline Long 3-pointer to close out first half scoring sending the teams to the break with Arcanum owning a 31-26 lead. Long paced the Lady Trojans with seven second-quarter points.
“Caroline Long probably had 15 or 16 rebounds,” said Coach Moore. “She came to play. Her athleticism showed tonight. She is capable of good things. She did a great job finishing strong tonight.”
The teams played to a 14-14 third-quarter standoff, with Gibbons knocking down six Lady Trojans points, sending the teams to the final quarter of play with Arcanum holding a five-point 45-40 lead.
Arcanum held a 54-51 lead with the clock winding down in the fourth, only to have Greenon get a 3-pointer to tie the score at 54-54, sending the game to overtime. The Lady Knights Hailey Paulus hit three of her five treys in the team’s third-quarter comeback.
With the Lady Knights holding a 65-58 overtime lead with time winding down, Gibbons drained a long 3-pointer for a final 65-61 Greenon win.
“Their three guards can do pretty much what they want,” Moore noted. “We were trying to protect the rim a little bit, protect the paint from some things we saw in the film, and that did allow them to get some shots. They were still shooting them three and four feet behind the line, so they weren’t easy opportunities, so hats off to them. It was a good shooting game for them.”
Alexis Gibbons led Arcanum with 28 points, including four 3-pointers and 6-6 at the free throw line. Sarah Riley paced Greenon with 28 points, including four 3-pointers and 8-8 at the charity stripe to lead all scorers.
“They both showed up tonight,” Moore said of Gibbons and Riley. “She was a handful. They do a good job of getting her open. We tried switching it up and throwing some different looks at them, and it didn’t seem like what we did; it didn’t make a difference to her. She’s a good ballplayer. Lex made some big shots and had some strong attacks to the hole.”
Caroline Long added 21 points for Arcanum, including a 3-pointer, eight two-point buckets, and two free throws. Greenon’s Hailey Paulus chipped in 17 points, including five triples and a two-pointer.
“This has been one of my most challenging seasons in my ten years of coaching high school girls basketball,” Coach Moore said following the game. “My heart has been challenged the most, my mind has been challenged the most with the adversity situations we’ve been put in, but this has been and not a knock on any of my former players because I have had a lot of really good years but this has probably been one of my favorites. These girls come out and play their tails off every night. They are a fun group; I don’t want it to end. I don’t feel like they want it to be over, so we’re going to do everything we can to be tournament-ready, to make a long tournament run.”
BOXSCORE:
GREENON 65, ARCANUM 61 OT
GREENON – S. Riley 28, H. Paulus 17, A. Minteer 14, C. Faust 6 – TOTALS 7 13 12 14 65
ARCANUM – A. Gibbons 28, C. Long 21, F. Wooten 5, J. Schwartz 3, M. Noe 3, A. Leeper 1 – TOTALS 15 10-17 7
3-POINTERS
Greenon 13 (H. Paulus 5, S. Riley 4, A. Minteer 2, C. Faust 2)
Arcanum 7 (A. Gibbons 4, J. Schwartz 1, C. Long 1, N. Noe 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
13-13-14-14-11 65 Greenon
19-12-14-09-07 61 Arcanum
