FORT RECOVERY – The Arcanum Lady Trojans traveled north to take on the Fort Recovery Lady Indians and brought home a 51-44 win over the Mercer County MAC team.
“I am extremely proud to be these girls’ coach – to have this opportunity,” said veteran Arcanum coach, Abbey Moore. “This is a fun group and I can’t wait for the next step.”
After a slow start, Arcanum took an 11-8 lead after one period of play led by Ashlyn Miller’s 5 points including her first of three 3-pointers on the night, and a triple each from Brooke Anderson and Matty Noe.
“To start the game we got the cobwebs out but you have to knock down that first shot,” said Moore. “Once that started rolling we started to click.”
“Once we started knocking down a few shots, coming up with a few defensive stops that started giving us a little bit of momentum and a little bit of confidence,” Moore added. “Ashlyn Miller, my senior on the floor stepped up and everybody did in big ways.”
Period No. 2 went to the Lady Trojans by a 19-15 count sending the teams to the break with Arcanum owning a 30-23 halftime advantage. Lexy Gibbons paced the Lady Trojans with 10 second-quarter points including 2 triples and 2-2 at the charity stripe. Arcanum bagged five 3’s in the second including one each from Miller, Rylee Leeper, and Noe.
“We had eight 3’s in that first half – that was huge,” said Moore. “I told the girls you have to knock down shots to get them to come out (Fort Recovery zone defense) or we are going to struggle all day.”
Fort Recovery outscored the Lady Trojans by a double-digit 15-5 third-quarter score taking a 38-35 lead over Arcanum with the teams heading to final period of action.
“The third quarter was our adversity for a quarter,” Coach Moore stated. “Looking back at that quarter we got a little complacent and we were kind of ok with where we were and then the mistakes started to happen. We have to come out with a little more energy and fire in that third quarter.”
The Lady Trojans faced an early fourth quarter 42-36 deficit before taking advantage of 10 unanswered points to lead 46-42 with 3:30 on the fourth quarter clock and close out on a 5-2 scoring run in earning the non-conference win and go 1-0 on the new season.
Arcanum took advantage of 7-12 at the fourth quarter free line while the Lady Indians went 0-2
“I’m going to thank the new free throw rule on that one,” Coach Moore said with a smile. “We got aggressive taking the ball to the hole and to the free throw line. The difference there at the end was taking care of the basketball. We switched things up on them a couple of times defensively to throw them off because we struggled with that scoop in that attack to the middle a little bit so we threw a zone then they started turning the ball over.”
Ashlyn Miller and Lexy Gibbons paced Arcanum with 15 points each.
“Lexy stepped up – she’s capable of it,” Moore said. “That girl has potential and it showed at times tonight in her leadership on the floor. Just seeing little things as a coach, seeing her take charge when things go wrong, just getting everybody back together and we saw that out of her tonight. That is going to go big. She wants to eventually play at the next level and those are things she has to learn. Seeing that out of her now at the beginning of the season is great and we have to see more of that in the future.”
BOXSCORE:
ARCANUM 51, FORT RECOVERY
ARCANUM – A. Miller 15, L. Gibbons 15, B. Anderson 7, M. Noe 6, C. Long 5, R. Leeper 3 – TOTALS 6 10 9-16 51
FORT RECOVERY – K. Muhlenkamp 18, K. Niekamp 8, S. Leuthold 8, C. Wendel 6, C. Muhlenkamp 4 – TOTLAS 17 2 4-10 44
3-POINTERS
Arcanum 10 (A. Miller 3, L. Gibbons 3, M. Noe 2, B. Anderson 1, R. Leeper 1)
Fort Recovery 2 (C. Wendel 2)
SCORE by QUARTERS
11-19-05-16 51 Arcanum
08-15-15-06 44 Fort Recovery
