In the fourth quarter, the Perryville girls basketball team played as it hoped it would the entire game. It was a classic case of too little, too late. The Panthers trailed 31-10 early in the fourth quarter and their furious rally came up short in a 36-30 defeat to host Elkton Thursday night.
Emily James' three-pointer cut the Elkton lead to 34-25 with 1:37 remaining. A steal and layup by Kayla Losoya trimmed the deficit to seven with 59 seconds left. Following a Perryville miss and an Elkton free throw, James nailed another three to make it 35-30 with 20 ticks left, but the Elks made a free throw to help seal the deal. "It's not like they didn't hustle but there was a different gear in the fourth quarter," Perryville coach Mike Blizzard said of his squad. "And there was a sense of desperation. I think you've got to play all 32 minutes with a sense of desperation." The Panthers were never able to fully recover from a sluggish first three quarters. Elkton, with seven freshmen and no seniors on its roster, led 7-2 at the end of the first quarter and 12-5 at the break. "We were 1 for 26 (field goal shooting) in the first half," said Blizzard. "And I told them you can't try to go 1 for 26 and succeed. And I thought for sure the third quarter (would be different). It was a learning experience." Leading 16-6, the Elks extended their lead on a three-pointer by Vanessa Dunn and two free throws from Maddie Rzucidlo. "There were mental lapses," Blizzard said. "We're not quite to the point where everything is instinctual. And they're thinking and worried about making mistakes and stuff. You've just got to be able to play. So it's going to take a while to learn what we do. I like the fact that they didn't quit. You can't teach that." Perryville had hoped to press from the beginning but that strategy was difficult to put into place since the Panthers were unable to score to set up their defense. The offense finally got going in the fourth quarter as the Panthers scored twice as many points in that period as they did in the first three combined. "We really decided to turn it into a mad scramble in the last five minutes because we've never even practiced the man-to-man press," Blizzard said. Dunn paced the Elks with 16 points, four steals, four assists, and three blocks. Rzucidlo recorded 11 points, three steals and two assists. Erykah Lloyd provided four points and a block and Emily Caldarelli contributed two points and seven steals. Jill Miller led Perryville with nine points. Losoya collected six points and four steals. Teri Wennersten pulled down 17 rebounds and Lydia Hill had five steals. Comments are closed.
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