Siloam Springs' girls turned in one of their better performances of the season on Tuesday.
The Lady Panthers never trailed in their 56-45 win over Alma in a 5A-West Conference game at Panther Activity Center.
Siloam Springs took the opening lead and -- after a brief time of Alma tying the ballgame on two occasions in the first quarter -- kept the Lady Airedales at bay most of the night.
"We are showing improvement, and I think that's huge," said Siloam Springs coach Tim Rippy. "Right now we're starting to gain a little bit of confidence. It was nice to lead one all the way through. That's one of the few games that's happened this year, where we had to withstand a little bit of a run, but we didn't show panic."
With the game tied 5-5, Chloe Price scored off the glass to give the Lady Panthers (5-10, 2-0) the lead for good and start a 9-0 run to close the first quarter and give Siloam Springs a 14-5 lead.
Alma (6-6, 0-2) cut the lead to five, but Siloam Springs re-established control of the game.
Siloam Springs' 10-2 run gave the Lady Panthers a 27-14 lead, capped by a basket by Jael Harried. All the points in that run came on baskets inside by Brooklyn Shreve, Price, Sydney Moorman, Jadyn Still and Harried.
The Lady Panthers led 29-19 at halftime and could have had a bigger lead if they had converted some chances, Rippy said.
"I told them at halftime, we scored 29 points, that's a good half for us, but we left a lot on the table," he said. "You know it's frustrating we missed some really easy opportunities at times where you feel like someone's open. We rush the pass or we have trouble catching it. All we can do is continue working on those things."
Alma cut it back to five early in the third quarter, 31-26, but Siloam Springs again responded with a 9-0 run to take a 40-26 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Chloe Price started the surge with a 3-pointer on the wing and then followed with two free throws. Price's basket made it 38-26 and Shreve hit two free throws for the 40-26 lead.
Emery Brown scored inside for a 42-26 lead to open the fourth quarter and the Lady Panthers pulled ahead by as many as 20 points.
"Siloam played well," Alma coach Codey Mann said. "They made some shots that they hadn't made on film that we watched. We were a step slow to loose balls. Offensive rebounds hurt us. Then when we did get steals that led to transition, we missed layups. You can't miss layups."
Price finished with 18 points to lead the Lady Panthers and seemed to be the catalyst for the Lady Panthers' offense.
"(Price) can create for everyone else when she's doing that," Rippy said. "She's also very hard to stop when she's attacking the rim. We talked to her about going north and south versus the zone, right at the rim and make them make decisions and I thought she did a good job of that at times."
Still added 11 points for Siloam Springs, while Brown had eight, Shreve seven, Harried six, Moorman four and Morgan Winesburg two.
Ariel Towns-Robinson led Alma with 13 points, while Cassidy Cooper had 10.
"We've got a lot of youth," Mann said. "One thing they don't understand sometimes, every possession is important and every rebound. We're still learning and hopefully we'll learn from this and move on."
Siloam Springs 56, Alma 45
Alma 5 14 7 19 -- 45
Siloam Springs 14 15 11 16 -- 56
Alma (6-6, 0-2): Towns-Robinson 13, Cooper 10, Kelley 9, Mata 7, Duncan 3, Higgins 3.
Siloam Springs (5-10, 2-0): Price 18, Still 11, Brown 8, Shreve 7, Harried 6, Moorman 4, Winesburg 2.
Up next
The Lady Panthers host Greenwood on Tuesday for a 5A-West Conference game at the Panther Activity Center.
Sports on 01/13/2019