Lady Hawks hampered by plethora of turnovers

Every time you suffer a turnover in basketball, your team gets one fewer shot at the hoop. That’s been the nemesis for the Thompson Falls varsity girls’ squad, which averaged a lofty 37 turnovers in losses to Loyola Sacred Heart and Eureka last week.

The Lady Hawks had no answer for Loyola freshman phenom Lani Walker, the coach’s daughter, who netted 31 points in leading the Missoula school to a 69-53 non-conference victory over T-Falls last Thursday.

Eureka used an 18-point final quarter to open up a close game Saturday and posted a 50-33 District 14C win over the Lady Hawks. That dropped T-Falls to 1-1 in the conference and 2-6 overall.

“They had probably 20 uncontested lay-ups,” T-Falls head coach Doree Thilmony said of the loss to Loyola Sacred Heart. “Forty-three of their points came on our turnovers.” T-Falls gave the ball up 39 times in the contest.

“They (Loyola) overplay tremendous on their defense,” Thilmony said, and picking off passes in the full-court press and half-court offense is their forte. “We didn’t perform like we did in practice.”

Loyola led 41-23 at halftime, and the teams played fairly evenly in the second half.

However, the Lady Hawks finished strong against Loyola.

“At the end of the game the girls had a great showing,” Thilmony said.

Megan Baxter paced T-Falls with 22 points, and Jody Detlaff added 12.

T-Falls with 22 points, and Jody Detlaff added 12.

T-FALLS WAS outscored 10-2 in the second quarter of the game against Eureka and the Lady Hawks trailed 18-12 at intermission.

“They shot 63 times to our 46,” Thilmony said. “We ended up turning the ball over 36 times, and they (Eureka) had 26 points off our turnovers.”

Baxter led T-Falls with 15 points. Faith Frields and Riley Watson had five each, and Elli Pardee and Jody Detlaff added four apiece.

Thilmony is asking her players in practice: “Do we have a press break and are we running it correctly?” she said. “We have to give our girls more pressure in practice.”

The Lady Hawks play a big conference game Friday at Bigfork, and they host Powell County (Deer Lodge) on Saturday. Next Tuesday, Jan. 15, Thompson Falls plays at Noxon.