OAK HILL – Early season play on the basketball court can leave coaches and players a little frustrated.
Thursday night when Oak Hill welcomed Nicholas County in a girls basketball game at the Lilly Center, there was plenty of frustration to go around for both teams.
Battling through turnovers and failures to convert on easy looks at the basket, the Red Devils used their defense to run past the Grizzlies 60-30.
Even though his team won convincingly on the scoreboard, Red Devils head coach Darrell Compton knew his team didn’t play anywhere near its best.
“I saw a lot of turnovers, crazy turnovers, and mostly self-induced. We are really struggling to find the open shot. We are just not seeing it right now,” Compton said. “We focus so much on defense that they are a little lost on offense. We did create a lot of turnovers and that is a good thing. But, until we learn to settle down and actually run the offense like we want them too, we are going to turn the ball over.”
Mason Stone scored the opening basket of the game to give the Grizzlies it only lead of the night. Then the Oak Hill pressure took over and harassed the visitors into numerous giveaways.
“I thought we should have handled that a little better. We drilled that the last couple of days in practice, but it worked for them,” Nicholas County head coach Kameron Hornsby said. “They are a very aggressive team and they got us to turn the basketball over. I would like my team to be a little more aggressive like they are, so kudos to coach Compton.”
Eden Gilkey evened the game for the Red Devils before back-to-back steals by freshman guard Taysia Gray led to easy buckets for Samiah Lynch on the other end. Lynch scored her third basket in a row off another steal from Allison Smith for an 8-2 lead.
Oak Hill would maintain that six-point lead after the first eight minutes. However, adding to the frustration for the home team was its inability to consistently convert the numerous easy looks that came from its pressure defense.
“It gets in their head some. The first half was really bad. I thought in the second half that we picked up the defensive intensity and we converted some of those easy looks,” Compton said.
Nicholas County cut the deficit back to two points midway through the second quarter sparked by two straight scores from Stone.
However, a basket from Hannah White and a strong drive to the basket by Lynch for a score ignited an 10-1 run for Oak Hill to close the final four minutes.
“I thought we really played sluggish tonight. We got out-rebounded by a ton without a doubt and didn’t really play to our potential,” Hornsby said. “Coach Compton has a good basketball team, no doubt. I think my team is a little better than a 30-point loss though. This game should have been a little closer.”
The Red Devils basically put the game out of reach in the first four minutes of the third quarter.
A steal from Lynch led to a lay-up for Gray which started an 8-0 run and Oak Hill would lead 36-18 after three quarters.
“We are still young and we have a lot of new faces. When we play our game, it is fun to watch. We get turnovers and they get put outs to the 3-point line. When we get hot, we can really get hot,” Compton said.
Even though he was not happy with the lopsided loss, Hornsby still saw some good things from his team.
“We had some positives tonight and we got some good minutes out of some freshman and sophomores who didn’t get a lot of playing time last year,” Hornsby said. “We will go back to the drawing board and when we go out in our next game against Westside, hopefully we will play a little harder. We are 1-2, but we still have a lot of games to play.”
Gray led all scorers with 17 points, Lynch added 16 and Allison Smith scored eight. Stone led the Grizzlies with 11 and Adrienne Truman scored nine points.
Oak Hill (3-1) is back in action Saturday when it hosts South Charleston at 4 p.m. Nicholas County will travel to Westside on Dec. 17.
NC: 6 6 6 12 – 30
OH: 12 11 13 24 -60
Individual scoring
NC: Adrienne Truman 9, Mason Stone 11, Jenna Grose 4, Kelsie Foster 6. Totals: 8 7-20 30.
OH: Allison Smith 8, Hannah White 5, Eden Gilkey 5, Samiah Lynch 16, Jordan Harris 2, Taysia Gray 17, Caralyn Smith 4, P Light 3. Totals 25 4-9 60.
3-pointers – NC: 1 (Truman ; OH: 6 (White, Gray 4, Light).
