Bath upends Wapak for WBL victory

Source: The Lima News, OhioJan.存倉 10--BATH TOWNSHIP -- Canceled practices and little time to prepare for their Western Buckeye League showdown certainly didn't help either Bath's or Wapakoneta's girls basketball teams leading into Thursday's game.However, Maddie Dackin showed no signs of rust to help lift the Wildkittens past the Redskins 56-47.Bath improves to 10-1 and 4-0 in the WBL while Wapakoneta is 6-5, 3-1.Dackin was the most dangerous player on the court from start to finish, scoring 25 points, hitting three 3-pointers, to go with 10 rebounds and two steals."Maddie started the season playing the way she's capable of," Bath coach Greg Mauk said. "And then I think she got into a comfort zone and wasn't doing the things that make her Maddie. We addressed that this week, and I thought she came out tonight and played great. She really played the way she should."Alyssa Manley scored 13 points for Bath and Bri Smith delivered eight points and six boards."Coach talked to us a couple days ago and said we needed to come out and play hard against this team, and I thought we did that," Dackin said. "We just wanted to put pressure on (Wapak) and turn them over."It's a really important win, it was a big WBL game, and it gives us a lot of momentum going forward."Bath certainly had all the momentum early. The Wildkittens' standard swarming, full-court pressure defense took its toll midway through the first quarter. Leading just 7-6 with 5:57 remaining in the first, Bath then forced six turnovers and built a 22-9 lead with just a minute to play in the period.Bath finished the first half with a 34-22 lead after forcing 11 turnovers while committing just three."Honestly, I wasn't really concerned with their press, maybe I should have put more emphasis on it but we haven't been hurt by the press much this year," Wapakoneta coach Rusty Allen said. "We didn't do a good job of handling it early, and that put us in a hole."I think what hurt us more was our lack of movement. We did a lot of s儲存anding around and didn't get into spots."Wapakoneta began to do everything a little better after the initial deficit. Wapakoneta had only eight turnovers in the second half and began to work its offense better. Sara Warner scored 15 points and Maddi Stiles scored 14 points.The Redskins made a strong push in the third quarter. Bath made just one of its first five field goals in the third quarter while Wapakoneta's offense slowly cut the deficit to six points -- 36-30 -- with 3:40 in the third."We started with a lot of energy, and I think that caught them off guard," Mauk said. "But in the second half, it looked like our legs were tired. We weren't defending the way we should, and we let them get some shots we shouldn't allow."In the first half, we had them on their heels. We were sluggish in the second half."However, a Wapakoneta turnover helped spur a Bath 8-1 run that put the Wildkittens back up 44-31 late in the third. The key play in that run was Manley converting an old fashioned 3-point play to put Bath up 40-30."That's kind of deflating," Allen said. "To get within six and we threw the ball away. Then they get a bucket-and-one."Warner fired back for Wapak with three straight buckets to cut the lead to 44-37 early in the fourth, but Bath kept at least a seven-point lead the rest of the way for the win.While Wapakoneta did a strong job of defending Bath's normally deadly 3-point shot -- the Wildkittens made just four -- the Redskins did allow a lot of points off the drive. Manley, Smith and Dackin all were able to collect points by consistently taking the ball to the rim."I thought we did a good job of defending the 3, unfortunately we didn't do a good job of stopping their dribble-drive," Allen said. "(Offensively) I think when we go back and look at the film, we'll see we missed some opportunities to get the ball inside."Copyright: ___ (c)2014 The Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Visit The Lima News (Lima, Ohio) at .limaohio.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉