South Clashes With Trail

J. C. Tilton
National Trail has had a resurgent season this year thanks in part to freshman 6 footer Kate Yeazel. She has been able to score in double figures almost at will this season. This has lead to a rebound of the Blazer fortunes. They are playing .500 ball this season after a series of losing seasons. South is struggling this season. They are a team of guards, with little height. So they would need to find a way to counterbalance Yeazel’s inside game with speed. The result was a closely fought game with several lead changes.

South sprang out to an early 6-0 lead. They were double teaming Yeazel every time she touched the ball. At first this was effective but finally Trail found other ways to score and closed the gap and the first quarter ended with a 9-9 tie. South employed a number of defenses - man to man and several zone offenses. But Trail showed the ability to score from outside and it was difficult to stay in a zone for very long. Trail stayed in man to man thru out the game. Placing Stacy Davis against South’s leading scorer Adelee Gates.

Yeazel was able to score more on the South defense in the second quarter - she had all of the Blazers 10 points. Trail employed a spread offense to loosen up the South defense and when South tried to trip them up by going to a zone, they were still able to get the ball inside to her. The half ended with Trail up 19-18.
This season South has had problems in the third quarter and this game was not an exception. They had two turnovers, missed foul shots and open shots from the field in the first 4 minutes of the half. Finally coach Mabry had seen enough and called a time out to get the team back on track. But Trail had already taken advantage and rang up a 10 point lead thanks to Kate Yeazel and Alyssa Joyce. The time out had the desired effect. Now it was South’s turn to go on a run and they closed the gap by slashing to the basket. Adelee Gates, Taylor Creech, and Whitney Wysong (4 free throws) all contributed to the South run which allowed South to pull within 2 of Trail by the end of the third.

Another factor that fell into the Panthers favor was Yeazel getting her third foul in the third quarter which sent her to the bench. And early in the fourth quarter, she would get her fourth. With Yeazel out of the game, South was able to get a small lead. But with the game on the line Yeazel would reappear in the last 5 minutes of the quarter. South had a 4 point lead at this point. But during this critical stretch, South could not find the basket and began missing shots. Alyssa Joyce was a big factor for Trail, scoring 2 big baskets during their run to the finish. Her second basket would tie the game at 41 with 1:47 on the clock. Later with :28 on the clock Yeazel would hit one of two free throws to give Trail the lead. South would try to set up a last second shot, but the attempt did not fall and they fouled on the rebound. This set up the final score of 43-41 in favor of the Blazers.

South Coach Mabry on the game, “Our girls played well, it just came down to who would score the final bucket. We had to foul on their end and they made the bucket. And we tried to set up an out of bounds play, but we couldn’t get the ball where we wanted it.”

Trail Coach Ferguson, “We tried to pull ahead there in the second half. But give South credit they really came back. I thought that our girls played really well. Our bread and butter is our inside game. They did a good job of taking it away early by doubling down. But our girls stayed with it. And Alyssa Joyce ended up with a critical rebound at the end of the game that sealed the win for us.” On defense, “We knew going in that Gates was their leading scorer and we assigned Stacy Davis to her - she held her to 9 points so she really hustled.”