Warsaw Girls Basketball: Lady Tigers Win Ugly
WARSAW — Some days the shots just aren’t falling, and when that’s the case, good teams are able to fall back on good defense.
So it went for Warsaw’s girls basketball team Saturday, as the Lady Tigers survived a physical Portage team, grinding out an ugly, 48-34 win in an afternoon game at the Tiger Den.
“Today was a struggle from the get-go. Going back to halftime, I think we had 21 points — 16 of them I think came from our bench at that point in time. We were just struggling to put the ball in the basket,” said head coach Lenny Krebs.
“You’ve got to learn to win ugly if you’re going to advance in the tournament, and that’s what we did today.”
The home team struggled to find a finishing touch early against a hands-on Indians defense, converting only 7 of 22 (31.8 percent) of its shots in the first half. Luckily for Warsaw (6-2), junior reserve Halle Shipp was due for a breakout game, and she delivered just that, scoring 11 of her game-high 15 points — earned at a 6-for-7 clip from the floor and perfect 3-for-3 clip from beyond the arc — over the first two periods and helping the Tigers to a 21-11 halftime advantage.
“We were Tiger Talking before the game about Halle, she was due for that breakout game again, and quite frankly, she came in and did it,” said Krebs.
Warsaw finally got its offense rolling after the break, converting 10 of its 18 (42.5 percent) shots in the second half.
While Shipp did much of the damage in the first half, fellow junior guard Maddie Ryman put up all 10 of her points in the third and fourth quarters after sitting out much of the first half in foul trouble. Junior forward Kacy Bragg finished with a near double-double of nine points and 10 rebounds, while senior guard Emma Bohnenkamper was held scoreless after a 17-point outing at Oregon-Davis Thursday, although she did manage seven rebounds and five assists and intermittently handled the ball up top when Ryman was in foul trouble.
“Emma was upset because she didn’t think that she contributed tonight like she did, and my comment to her was your performance was different; it wasn’t any less. I think it’s important that Emma understands that,” Krebs said.
It was the Tigers’ defense more than anything that earned them the win Saturday.
Warsaw held Portage to 10-of-32 (31.3 percent) shooting and pestered the Indians into 22 turnovers, a combination that added up to Portage finishing more than 20 points under its average and snapping a four-game win streak by the Indians in the process.
“Contrary to what a lot of people think about a Krebs coached team and how we like to score points, I pride myself on the defensive side of the basketball. I thought our defense did a great job,” Krebs said. “We made them take some low-percentage shots. I’m sure they could go back and hit some of those shots during the game, but I felt like we contested pretty much every shot we needed to there in the first half.
“Any time you’re struggling to score offensively it’s nice that you can fall back on the defense and make sure you keep a game competitive until that offense can get going.”
The physical game also featured a combined 36 fouls by the combatants — a tally that could’ve easily been much higher. The Tigers were visibly frustrated at times by Portage’s aggressive play, and while they passed Saturday’s test, it’s an aspect of their game Krebs would like to continue to work on.
“I think that was part of our struggle early on, was we just weren’t used to that type of physicalness taking place,” he said. “Hopefully that’s going to change here in the next week. We have a boys practice squad that’s going to be coming in, and that’s something that we need in order to continue to push us to get better at those little things. A lot of those misses early on was just fear of contact or there was a little contact, and we got knocked off balance. That’s something that we have to be able to handle and still finish.”
The Tigers will look for their third straight win at Fort Wayne Carroll Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m.
Warsaw’s JV fell just a little short opposite their Portage counterparts, 34-30. Kensie Ryman led the junior varsity Tigers in the scoring column with 12 points. Jordan Barnes scored 14, and Analise Franklin put up 12 for the Indians in the win.