Lady Tigers go cold in loss

The weather outside the Smith-Cotton gymnasium might as well have been balmy Friday compared to the chill the Lady Tigers felt on the basketball court in the second half.

Smith-Cotton scored only seven points in the second half of its semifinal game in the Smith-Cotton/McDonald’s Lady Tiger Classic. The Lady Tigers’ uncharacteristically icy touch helped Camdenton easily pull away for a 47-32 win.

“Most nights, offense hasn’t necessarily been our problem,” Smith-Cotton coach Chris Parsons said. “We’ve had the ability to stay pretty patient. We’ve had the ability that somebody stepped up in the middle and kind of took over the game.”

Smith-Cotton (5-9) committed 10 turnovers in the second half, including a disastrous stretch where the Lady Tigers had six turnovers on seven possessions.

“Our game plan was to control the tempo, and I felt like we did that for 32 minutes,” said Camdenton coach Stacy Asante. “We really put an emphasis on blocking out ... and I feel like our kids did a great job of that down the stretch.”

That stretch, which started late in the third quarter, allowed the Lakers to extend a 31-28 cushion to a double-digit lead.

The Lady Tigers made only two shots from the field in the second half and went 8:45 between those buckets. Cristian Sharp hit a jumper with 5:15 left in the third to bring S-C within 28-27, but the Lady Tigers didn’t hit another shot until Whitney Pollitt sank a 3-pointer from NBA range with 2:55 left in the game.

“Tonight it seemed like every time we had a perfect little open shot, we’d either walk with it or we’d give up that open shot and just wouldn’t finish it,” Parsons said.

Andi Rea and Alicia Dunkin each made a free throw to account for Smith-Cotton’s other points.

The second half was a stark contrast from S-C’s second quarter. Camdenton opened the game shooting well and quickly opened a 19-10 lead late in the first quarter.

Pollitt helped S-C start its comeback when she sank a 3-pointer to end the opening frame. Sharp hit a jumper, Kaitlin Knight made a layup and Dunkin’s shot in the paint tied the game at 19 with 4:30 left in the second quarter.

Pollitt, who scored 14 points to lead Smith-Cotton, hit another 3 to tie it at 22 with 2:12 to go in the half. Knight, who scored all five of her points in the second quarter, had a putback with 1:31 left to tie the game again at 24, but the Lady Tigers never led after the first quarter.

Stephanie Kirvan paced the Lakers with 19 points.

“I could just really tell that she wanted this game, she wanted to win,” Asante said. “I thought in the first half, really, Stephanie was the reason we were still in it.”

Andrea Keedy and Lindsey Hale added 10 points each for the Lakers, who will face Glendale at 7 p.m. today in the championship game.

Smith-Cotton will take on Marshall at 5:30 p.m. today in the third-place game.