ST. LEON
Seymour’s girls basketball team battled but fell just short in a pair of games at the East Central Holiday Tournament on Thursday.
Following an opening-round loss to South Ripley, the Owls fell to Hamilton Heights in consolation play.
Seymour will play in the seventh-place game at the tournament at 2 p.m. today against Rushville.
Owls fall to Raiders
While the Owls were able to surmount big deficits in the early goings, they couldn’t muster a late comeback in their tournament opener.
Class 2A No. 2 South Ripley (11-1) bullied Seymour on the boards to come away with a 65-51 win Thursday morning.
The Raiders jumped to a 6-1 lead before the Owls scored six straight points on two baskets by Grace Meyer and a score from Makenna Fee.
In the final 2:40, the Raiders scored seven unanswered points to take a 13-7 advantage into the second quarter.
Ashton Chase, Maddie Roark and Aidan Hiester each made 3-pointers to cut the Owls’ deficit to 20-16 with 3:50 left in the first half.
Following a score by the Raiders’ Morgan Peetz, Seymour went on a 9-1 run to lead 25-23 with 1:54 on the clock.
With less than a second left on the clock, the Raiders inbounded the ball from under the basket to Elexah Roepke. Roepke nailed a jumper from around the free throw line to put the Raiders up 27-25 at halftime.
Out of the break, the Raiders got hot from the field.
The Raiders went on a 11-2 run from the 7:47 mark to the 4:34 mark to lead 38-27.
In the final 3:02 of the quarter, the Owls chipped away. Chase added three points, Meyer scored five and Roark split free throws to cut the lead to 43-39 at the end of 24 minutes of play.
The Raiders scored eight unanswered points at the start of the fourth quarter to extend its lead to 51-39 with 5:25 on the clock.
In the waning minutes, the Raiders exchanged blows with the Owls as they held on for the win.
“We didn’t execute the game plan very well,” Owls coach Jason Longmeier said. “We gave up way too many easy baskets against a quality basketball team.”
Roark scored 24 points and Meyer added 11. The Raiders had five players scoring in double figures, led by 14 points from Toria Tucker.
Both teams had 16 turnovers in the game.
The final rebounding totals had the Raiders beating the Owls 27-9.
“The rebounding was atrocious,” Longmeier said. “That’s effort and attitude. They had eight offensive rebounds and we had nine total. That’s a recipe for a complete disaster. It was not a well-played game on our part.”
While the Owls had some runs in the game to get within the lead, Longmeier said he thought that rebounding and turnovers kept them back.
“(South Ripley) is an experienced team,” Longmeier said. “We had a lot of poor turnovers during stretches when we were trying to make a run. I thought we did a good job of getting ourselves back in it two or three times, but we just couldn’t get over the hump.”
Huskies shoot down Owls
Hamilton Heights made 11 3-pointers on 25 attempts (44 percent) to sink the Owls 56-49 in the evening game.
Following the opening whistle, Fee scored the Owls’ first three baskets.
Up 6-3, Ashton Chase hit a 3-poiner and Roark hit a pair of free throws to extended the Owls’ lead to 11-5.
The Huskies outscored the Owls 7-2 in the final 3:05 of the first quarter, capped by a 3-pointer at the buzzer, to lead 13-12.
The teams traded baskets until a free throw and 3-pointer by Roark, and free throws from Meyer, put the Owls up 24-21 with just under two minutes left in the half.
The Huskies hit another 3-pointer to tie the game at 24 going into halftime.
Back-to-back 3-pointers put the Huskies up 30-24 early in the third quarter.
“I thought the start of the third quarter was huge,” Longmeier said. “We had three good looks at the basket and didn’t score and they hit two 3’s. You look back and want to say that you want those three possessions back.”
While 3-pointers from Alyssa Perry and Roark tied the game at 32, the Huskies hit back-to-back treys again to lead 38-32 at the end of three quarters.
Seymour battled back in the fourth quarter.
From 4:33 to 2:25, the Owls scored nine straight to re-tie the game at 43. Chase and Roark each hit 3-pointers in the stretch.
A 7-0 run but the Huskies bolstered the lead with 1:05 left.
Chase sank a trey and Roark got a basket to go to cut the deficit to 52-48, but an and-one from the Huskies with 28 ticks left put them back on top by five.
The Owls were forced to foul in the final ticks, unable to make the comeback.
“They hit some 3s at some opportune times,” Longmeier said. “But give our kids some credit, too, we hit some big 3s to get back into that game. We fought hard and did some good things. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Roark led the Owls with 17 points and Fee added 13. Lexi Branham scored 20 and Bayleigh Runner had 19 for the Huskies.
The Huskies shot 46 percent from the field to the Owls’ 42 percent.
Seymour won the rebounding battle 22-20, but had 10 turnovers to the Huskies’ eight.
“You’ve got to give them credit, they were ready to knock them down,” Longmeier said. “I thought the press got us back into it, and then late in the game the press kind of hurt us. That’s the nature of the beast, but I thought we did some better things this evening than what we did in the afternoon.”
The Owls will have a change at revenge against Rushville today. On Nov. 25, the Lions beat the Owls 59-56.