Tigers Too Much In Home Rout
WARSAW – Leave it to Warsaw girls basketball coach Lenny Krebs to find fault in a 74-28 win. It was about all the coach could do to point out anything adverse to an otherwise whipping Warsaw put on Wabash Wednesday night at the Tiger Den.
“I’m still not happy with 41 turnovers. I thought we were out of position a little bit too much defensively,” quipped Krebs, remarking on his team creating those 41 Wabash turnovers but doing so in what he felt was through sloppy runs of play. “We got away with some things that we are not going to get away with against Crown Point and against Penn, the teams we have coming up.
“But I thought we made some nice adjustments in the second half. They were disciplined on the defensive end in the second half and that showed on both ends of the floor.”
The closeness of the game ended on an 8-0 run in the first quarter, sparked by a pair of threes from Kacilyn Krebs. At 14-4 after Krebs’ second make, and later 14-6 at the end of the first, it would be the last time Wabash would see a single-digit deficit the rest of the night.
Warsaw opened the second quarter with another three from Krebs, then some fine inside work from Kaylee Patton stretched the lead to 21 at 31-10 and Warsaw was well on its way.
Krebs’ only gripe came in the second half where spacing and some court positioning was about all to fault during a 26-3 run to open the third. Patton got hot from the floor, hitting a pair of threes and running her scoring total to a game-high 20 points before exiting for the night. Krebs finished with 13 points, combining with Patton to go 7-15 from three-point range. As a whole, Warsaw was 12-26 from deep, aided by a perfect 3-3 from Hannah Hatfield, who had all her makes in the second half.
Audrey Grimm chipped in 10 points, Kendall Wayne scored nine points, Bailie Stephens had six assists, Abby Sanner had seven rebounds.
“I thought once we started moving the ball better, we got some key ball movement within the context of the offense, and that’s when we started playing well,” Krebs said. “This is a team that once we hit one or two, we feed off that energy. And four or five come right behind it.”
The Apaches (1-3) had Mariah Wyatt lead the team with 11 points.
“I thought we were trying a little bit too hard to make things happen early in the game,” Krebs said. “I thought we were in kind of a frantic, panic mode. I think they were trying to put 20 points on the board with one shot. In the second half we came out and were much more relaxed. We just let the process happen.”
The JV game went to Warsaw in a 55-15 final. The Tigers move to 3-1 on the season. Marin Hart led a balanced attack with 14 points and Hatfield dropped in 13 points.
Warsaw moves to 4-0 this season and next faces a pair of Duneland Conference opponents Saturday in the Duneland/NLC Shootout at Merrillville. Warsaw takes on No. 2 Crown Point at 12:45 p.m. and Merrillville at 5:45 p.m.