Action in the Porter County Conference’s (PCC) annual Basketball Tournament started up on Monday night with LaCrosse’s Lady Tigers defeating Hebron’s Lady Hawks 58-37, and Kouts Fillies topping the Boone Grove Lady Wolves 55-52.
LaCrosse put out the most dominating performance of the evening, keeping the Lady Hawk’s from the basket to build a 20 point lead by the half that continued to grow thanks to excellent shooting from each Lady Tiger.
“We were knocking down shots, and that’s the difference in a basketball game,” said Chris McGowen, head coach for LaCrosse. “I give Hebron all the credit in the world. They were down a few starters and they really battled. I give Coach [Megan] Goodan all the credit, her girls played hard.”
The Lady Tigers will have to face the Kouts Fillies next, who staved off a scrappy comeback performance from Boone Grove.
The Fillies played aggressive defense, forcing turnovers early on to build a quick double-digit lead – sitting 37-26 at the half. They lost control of the game’s momentum in the third quarter, surrendering turnovers of their own and many offensive rebounds to a resurgent Lady Wolves team – who were just one missed three-pointer away from forcing overtime.
“The start of the game was a big difference, thankfully we had that big lead because we started to crumble a bit in the second half,” said Ron Kobza, head coach for the Fillies. “Their pressure got to us a bit, and we went into panic mode. The biggest thing tonight was the offensive rebounds, they worked hard and we didn’t do a good job boxing them out. We’ve got to tighten up some things on the offensive side and defensive side in order to advance and beat LaCrosse.”
The Girls’ PCC Tournament continues at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at South Central High School.