The Van-Far girls couldn’t afford to hit a cold spell on Monday night.
Van-Far vs Elsberry Photo Gallery
The Lady Indians didn’t score any points in the fourth quarter until …
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The Van-Far girls couldn’t afford to hit a cold spell on Monday night.
Van-Far vs Elsberry Photo Gallery
The Lady Indians didn’t score any points in the fourth quarter until just under two minutes remaining, and they lost at home 38-26 to Eastern Missouri Conference foe Elsberry. Van-Far’s offense lost the ball 15 times to steals.
Head coach Heather Minter said Van-Far (4-6, 1-2 EMO) was only behind 24-21 after three quarters and 17-14 at halftime but couldn’t close out the game well enough.
“We started playing scared,” Minter said. “We didn’t have the urge of wanting to win. We’ve got to have other players other than Elliott (Utterback) that want to score.”
Minter added she encourages Utterback to shoot more whenever she has separation. Utterback led Van-Far with 12 points and three 3-pointers, and Chloe Zumwalt followed with 11 points and six rebounds as the only other Lady Indians in double figures.
Elsberry (4-5, 1-1 EMO) came away with many turnovers but affected Van-Far’s offense even more than that. Deflections happened all night, forcing Van-Far out of rhythm frequently even when Elsberry didn’t steal the ball.
“Their defense bothered us. That 1-2-2,” Minter said. “We’re used to playing a lot of man. It’s something we can work on and get better. We’ll see them again in two weeks and try to make out adjustments.”
Zumwalt did receive several passes inside that set up a bucket for her, but there were plenty of other times when the lob pass was off-target or an Elsberry defender made contact with the ball first.
Falyn Davidson led Elsberry with 14 points and had eight steals. Ella Barber followed with 10 points while reigning all-conference player Mya Pflasterer only had to score six points along with eighth rebounds.
“We were forcing it too much instead of learning to go away,” Minter said. “We’re trying to do the kill zone automatically instead of reversing it around. Once we watch film and break it down, they’ll see it.”
Van-Far plays at conference foe Bowling Green (3-6, 1-1 EMO) at 5:30 p.m. tonight. Minter said the struggles didn’t stem from the long layoff caused by Christmas break and the snow last week since she said Van-Far practiced more than it anticipated thanks to planning well around the snow. The Lady Indians shouldn’t take long to get ready for the rest of their schedule.
“We’ve got good administrators, and they let us practice,” Minter said. “The most our kids went without practicing was three days. It wasn’t too bad as we got to practice a lot.”