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By RANDY WILKER
EL Sports Correspondent
PIQUA — It came right down to the wire, but a layup and a free throw by Erika Thornsberry allowed the St. Marys Lady Roughriders to defeat the Piqua Indians 49-46 Monday evening in a non-league game played at Piqua.
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“You have to give Piqua a lot of credit,” Riders head coach Tim Niekamp said. “They really battled. They hit big shot after big shot to keep themselves in the game and we had just enough mistakes to let them hang around.” Going into the final eight minutes the Riders held on to a slim 38-33 lead and it looked like neither team was going to score at the beginning of the quarter. The Riders missed their first four shots, but the Indians couldn’t get on the scoreboard until a basket by Beth Caldwell with 6:20 left and a basket off a travel by Whitney Bailey to pull within 38-37 with 5:27 left. That is when the Riders and in particular Rachel Wale went to work. Wale nailed two layups and a pair of free throws to give the Riders a 44-39 lead with 2:54 left. Caldwell scored on a layup to close the gap to 44-41 with 2:37 left. Then it was Erika Thornsberry who took over. First she hit two free throws with 1:49 left. Alexsis Clay hit a field goal, but missed the free throw and then Caldwell put up a three to tie the game at 46-all with 17.4 seconds left. Following a timeout, the Riders took the ball out and gave the ball to Thornsberry. She took the ball all the way in and scored a layup and was fouled with 11.5 seconds left. She converted the free throw to give the Riders a 49-46 lead. Piqua couldn’t get a good shot to give the Riders the victory. “They pressed the entire game,” Niekamp said. “They mixed up the 2-2-1 and the diamond so they forced a few turnovers.
“I thought Erika Thornsberry did a very good job,” Niekamp continued. “I don’t usually talk about an individual, but she did a very good job in the clutch. She rebounded when she had to, she got the ball in the middle when she had to, and she drove when she had to.” The Riders (6-8) and Indians battled throughout the first quarter as each team answered the other until the final two minutes when Katie Burke and Thornsberry nailed back to back three’s to give the Riders a 16-12 lead after one quarter. In the second quarter St. Marys increased the lead to 23-14 with 4:37 left, but Piqua came back with a trey from Caldwell and a basket by Clay to make the score 23-19 with 2:17 left. The Riders maintained the lead going into halftime by sinking five of six free throws to lead 28-25 at halftime. In the game St. Marys converted 15 of 16 from the line. “I thought we did a good job at the line tonight,” Niekamp said. “We had another game earlier this season like that.”
In the third quarter the Riders outscored Piqua 10-8 with seven of the points coming from Thornsberry. There were two specific plays according to coach Niekamp that decided the game. “We had a stop on them one time when the ball fell in the hands off Caldwell and she hit that big three to tie the game,” Niekamp said. “The other play was with 18 seconds left we were going to bring the ball to half court and call timeout, but we saw Erika coming down so we let her go and she scored.” Thornsberry was the leading scorer with 23 points and six rebounds. Piqua had three scorers in double figures with Caldwell scoring 13 points, Clay had 12 points and Kami Baker had 10 points. In the JV game Piqua defeated the Riders 39-34. The Riders entertain O-G on Thursday.
ST. MARYS 49
PIQUA 46
St. Marys 16 12 10 11 – 49
Piqua 12 13 8 13 – 46
ST. MARYS 49
Thornsberry 7-7-23, Wale 2-4-8, Schlater 2-2-6, Burke 2-0-6, Steva 1-2-4, Sudhoff 1-0-2: Totals 15-15-49.
PIQUA 46
Caldwell 5-1-13, Clay 5-0-12, Baker 4-2-10, Bailey 2-0-4, Fair 2-0-4, Hilleary 1-1-3: Totals 19-4-46.
3-Point Goals: SM 4 (Burke 2, Thornsberry 2), PIQUA 4 (Clay 2, Caldwell 2).
Rebounds: SM 23 (Schlater 6, Thornsberry 6, Steva 6), PIQUA 16 (Bailey 5).
Team Fouls: SM 14, PIQUA 17.
Technical Fouls: NONE.
Fouled Out; NONE.
Turnovers: SM 23, PIQUA 13.
Halftime Score: SM 28-25.
JV SCORE: PIQUA – 39-34. |
