ADNA — Playing its first game in a week, the Adna girls basketball team came out just half a step slow against Toledo on Thursday.
That was enough to throw the Pirates’ offense out of much of a rhythm. But it was still plenty fast enough for the defense to do the dirty work in an easy 65-31 win.
“It was one of those nights where not everything that’s been going down was going down, but I thought our defense really honed in,” Adna coach Chris Bannish said.
The Pirates (15-1, 9-1 C2BL) held the Riverhawks (10-6, 4-5 C2BL) to just three points in the first quarter and four in the second, with Toledo shooting a rough 3 for 15 from the field in the first 16 minutes.
It wasn’t just one set or wrinkle that did the damage.
“They were switching up defenses quite a bit, and that confused us more than it should have, Toledo coach Randy Wood said. “We had practiced for it and I thought we were prepared for it, but we still kind of had the jitters a bit.”
Sometimes, the Pirates lined up in their standard 2-3 zone. Sometimes they went man-to-man, sometimes they went 1-3-1 and sometimes they flashed one look before settling into another.
“At any level of basketball, if they’re coming down thinking you’re in one thing, and you’re in another, that burns another 10 seconds before they can get organized, or it burns a timeout,” Bannish said. “I think we’re at the point where we can do that; we’ve been doing that, but today we did it more than we have.”
By halftime, Adna had already forced 21 turnovers, and went into the break up 30-7.
Then in the third quarter, the Pirates turned the offense on a bit more to the tune of 20 points in eight minutes, stretching the lead out before the starters left the floor midway through the fourth.
Karsyn Freeman led the way with 25 points. Behind her, Gaby Guard had nine and Bailey Chapman and Danika Hallom both added eight.
Ryah Stanley posted 13 points for Toledo.
Both the Riverhawks and Pirates will leave C2BL action for their next game. Toledo is set to host 1B Naselle on Saturday, while Adna will got south to Longview on Monday to face 2A Mark Morris.
