A home-and-home series with Festus proved a tough challenge for the Perryville Lady Pirates last week, as they lost 70-29 on the road Jan. 20, then lost 67-39 in a home game at the Perry Park Center in Perryville.
“They’re a really good team,” said Perryville coach Jason Dreyer after last Thursday’s loss. “I think they’re 14-2 for a reason. When we went up there Tuesday night, we did not have very good energy, and I felt like we kind of quit early on. I kind of challenged the girls at practice, and I feel like they responded.”
So well, in fact, that the Lady Pirates (7-7) held a 1-point lead — 17-16 — at the end of Thursday’s first quarter and only trailed by five at the half, 29-24.
“In the third quarter, I think we got cut it down to two at one point,” Dreyer said, “and then I don’t know if they got tired or what. Festus switched their defense up a little bit. We didn’t do a very good job of handling that, but I felt like our energy and our defensive effort and our rebounding effort was a lot better.”
The Lady Tigers (14-2) held Perryville to 8 points in the fourth quarter while putting up 23 points to set the final margin.
“Festus did a good job of switching their defenses up, and I think it was confusing our guards,” Dreyer said. “We talked before the game about not making it an up-and-down game, and trying to keep it a little slower, take care of the ball. I think in the third quarter, when the game started slipping away, I think we just tried to speed up, and we didn’t do a very good job at handling their different defenses.”
That led to a number of turnovers, and Festus finished the game with 15 steals, led by Alyzah Scaggs with 5.
Festus finished with three players who scored at least 10 points, led by Lillian Kennedy with 11, followed by Jahmeshia Patterson and Scaggs with 10 each. As a team, they finished with 16 assists and 23 rebounds.
For Perryville, juniors Janie Porter and Aby Amberger finished with 11 points each. Junior Madeleine Gremaud had 9.
Even though the Lady Pirates took another loss to the same team, Dreyer said Thursday’s home game was an improvement over the Lady Pirates’ first meeting with Festus, highlighting a better defensive effort and better rebounding.
“On Tuesday night, we got off to a really bad start,” Dreyer said, “and I think our girls just kind of — in my mind, I think they kind of quit, and they didn’t play very hard the rest of the game. So like I said, we challenged them in practice, and I felt like we had a ton of energy and we played really, really hard. The final score, I don’t think, shows how close the game was for two-and-a-half quarters.”
In the Jan. 20 game at Festus, the Lady Tigers rolled to a 16-8 lead in the first quarter, and despite Perryville’s best efforts, led 38-20 at the half.
Perryville scored 9 points in the second half as the Lady Tigers put up 32 to set the final margin.
Sophomore Lilly Cowell was the only Lady Pirate to reach double digits, finishing with 10 points. Porter had 9. For Festus, Lillian Kennedy had 17 points, followed by Olivia Madden with 13.
Dreyer said he hopes his team learned from the two losses, especially about the effort required to compete successfully.
“I hope they can take away the idea that we can compete with really good teams,” Dreyer said. “They learned a lesson. I think just about every offensive rebound that [Festus] got, I think they scored on. That’s something that we try to pound on the girls about offensive rebounding. I’m really hoping that they take away the idea that we believe that we could beat really good teams. But it’s got to take four quarters, not two-and-a-half quarters.”
