Siloam Springs spent all week working on a 3-2 zone defense. On Friday, the Lady Panthers took it for a test drive and liked what they saw.
Siloam Springs' new defense held Rogers Heritage to just three field goals in the first half and eight total for the night in a 48-28 victory inside Panther Activity Center.
Siloam Springs 48, Heritage 28
Rogers Heritage 7 5 8 8 — 28
Siloam Springs 14 9 17 8 — 48
Rogers Heritage (6-4): Sara Giesen 9, Hailey Tiles 9, Emilie Jobst 3, Shelby Thompson 3, Liberty Thompson 2, Kate Mellon 2.
Siloam Springs (6-3): Mayse Pippin 11, Baily Cameron 9, Bailee Owens 8, Taylor Gay 6, Haley Stewart 4, Mirna Torres 4, Jaci Hoelscher 2, Abby Cox 2, Lily Downing 2.
The Lady Panthers had four full practice days to work on the 3-2 zone last week, and they played their tallest players at the front, similar to the 3-2 zone employed by the varsity boys team.
"It was a good week of practice this week because we got to experiment with some new stuff," said Siloam Springs girls coach Tim Rippy. "We finally had a break where we had four days of practice without a game. That's the first time that's happened really since the season started.
"We installed the zone. With our length, that really bothered Heritage. Teams with smaller guards, I think that's going to be an asset to us. It gives us one more look, and so we used it quite a bit tonight to work on it. I thought it really kind of took them out of rhythm early. When we went back to man we were fine. We worked on that this week as well. The zone's always going to be an asset for us."
The idea for the zone came from many places. Of course Rippy sees it often when watching the Panthers play. Former Siloam Springs coach and current Bentonville coach Jason McMahan made a video of the 3-2 zone before he left Siloam Springs in 2009 and Rippy said he screened it as well. Also, when he was head coach at Gentry, he saw Farmington employ the 3-2 a lot and "we always had a hard time with it."
The Lady Panthers trailed briefly 5-2 after Sara Giesen knocked down a 3-pointer in the corner for Heritage (6-4), but Siloam Springs went on a 9-0 run to go up 14-5 and never trailed again.
Baily Cameron answered Giesen's trey with a 3-point of her own to tie the game. Mirna Torres then hit a pair of free throws to give the Lady Panthers a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Mayse Pippin added a basket and Taylor Gay converted a three-point play with 1:46 left in the first quarter to give the Lady Panthers a 14-5 lead.
Gay knocked down a 3-pointer to open the second quarter for a 17-7 lead. A Torres basket inside off a dish from Gay made it 19-9.
Pippin's basket in transition kept the lead at 10 points, and she added another basket before halftime to give the Lady Panthers a 23-12 lead at intermission.
"Give credit to Siloam, they were aggressive and had us on our heels," Heritage head coach Kevin Ramey said. "We never attacked them and went after them. The one glaring stat for us in the first half was we had zero offensive rebounds. That's pure effort and intensity.
"What's disappointing is we thought we were going to come over here and get a good preseason test. I thought our kids were ready to get after it and battle. We didn't show up very well. I thought Siloam's passion for the game was way advanced to ours. We just kinda jogged through the whole thing. On the road, we weren't good enough to be competitive."
The Lady Panthers picked up where they left off in the third quarter.
Cameron powered in for a basket inside to open the quarter. Bailee Owens knocked down a pair of free throws and Pippin hit a 3-pointer in the corner for a 30-12 lead.
Owens had a stickback and Cameron hit a baseline jumper for a 34-17 lead. Owens hit two more free throws, Pippin scored inside and Abby Cox scored down low for a 40-20 lead entering the fourth quarter.
The Lady Panthers' lead reached as high as 26 points in the fourth quarter after two buckets from Haley Stewart and scores from Jaci Hoelscher and Lily Downing.
Pippin led the Lady Panthers with 11 points, while Cameron had nine and Owens scored eight.
"With the circumstances of the week with finals and all that, I thought we were fairly sharp," Rippy said. "We could have cleaned it up on offense with our finishes and our angles inside, especially in the first half. But I thought defensively we played really hard."
The Lady Panthers were hoping to play the game at more of their pace, which they did accomplish at times.
"We had told our kids going into practice, we thought if we could get it into the 50s we would have a pretty good chance," Rippy said. "We wound up getting 48. We ran with the ball when we had chances. But they were very patient on offense, especially early in the game."
The Lady Panthers held Heritage's leading scorer Emilie Jobst to just three points, and that came on a 3-pointer with 3:43 left in the third quarter.
Giesen and Hailey Tiles each scored nine points to lead Heritage.
The Lady Panthers are now off until 7 p.m. on Dec. 30 when they play in the opening round of the Siloam Springs Holiday Classic against Mingo Valley (Okla.).
Rippy said the team won't practice this week until Saturday, and they'll have three days of practice before opening the tournament.
Sports on 12/21/2014