Published: January 14, 2009 02:03 am      

Falcons beat Red Ramblers

North Vermillion improves to 7-6

ATTICA, Ind. — North Vermillion used a 25-8 run to take the lead at halftime en route to a 55-34 victory over host Attica. The win not only puts the Falcons over the .500 mark at 7-6, but also equals their total number of wins across the last three seasons combined.

It was Attica that started well, taking a 12-4 lead in the early going.

“We got the ball inside and then found Mackenzie (Cooper) who hit several shots,” Attica coach Matt Harmeson said. “The last few games we’re starting to put points on the board.”

North Vermillion began their comeback late in the first quarter, but it was midway through the second that the Falcons started to take off.

“We were sluggish at the beginning of the game,” North Vermillion coach Terry Naylor said. “We didn’t box out. We didn’t cut off the dribble. We just didn’t play with any energy. We finally started to wake up with about four minutes left in the second quarter.”

Harmeson agreed that was the tipping point but thought part of the reason was that his team grew tired and gave up too many easy baskets.

“We’re playing without Kasey Randles inside — she’s got a virus — and Kayla (Allison) has been sick for two days so she just gutted it out, but we tired inside and that hurt us.”

Naylor said his team played even better in the second half as they turned a nine-point halftime lead into a margin of 19 by the end of the third quarter.

“We seemed to find a spark and get our energy up — that was really the only time our defense played well. Overall, this was not a good defensive game on our part.”

During that one stretch, the Falcon defense forced several turnovers that led to fast break points — one of only two things that disappointed Harmeson about his team.

“We gave them too many possessions because of the turnovers and even though we made a run, we could never close the gap,” he said.

He, like Naylor, felt his team did not play well defensively, but putting part of the blame on his stressing offense recently in practice.

“We made some mistakes out there, but they are the kind of thing we can fix — we can start to work on it (today) at practice,’’ Harmeson said. “I think we’ve concentrated so much on trying to score that we let down on defense.”

At the close of the game, North Vermillion put in some bench players and slowed the game down, scoring just often enough to hold off any Attica thoughts of a comeback.

“We’ve had an up-and-down season,” said Naylor. “We’re above .500 and that’s good, but we still need more focus and more effort. I see it in spurts, but we need it all game.”

For Harmeson, there were several bright spots.

“I liked how (Mariah) Davis played (Hillary) Lively in the middle — by denying her the ball,’’ he said. “We also handled their full court pressure better than we have all year and I like our aggressiveness. We just need to play hard for 32 minutes instead of the quarter and a half we did tonight.”

Scoring was very balanced for North Vermillion as they put four players in double figures, led by Lively with 16. Casey West added 12; Bethany Chew scored 11 and Kylee West had 10.

Cooper led the Red Ramblers (0-13) with 14 points while Davis chipped in with nine.

Up next for Attica is Thursday’s home game with Lafayette Central Catholic, while North Vermillion plays at South Vermillion next Tuesday.