By By TOM NYHUIS / Niles Daily Star
BUCHANAN - Buchanan improved its season to 8-8, 7-3 in the Lakeland and Edwardsburg's woes continued as they fell to 5-11 overall and 2-9 in LAC play as the Bucks took a 37-14 win Tuesday night on the Bucks home court.
Poor execution by the Eddies let the game get away early. “I was pretty disappointed,” Edwardsburg coach Mark Zarycki said after the game. “We didn't attack their zone very well, and when they switched defenses on us sometimes we didn't recognize it. I got to believe, I hope, that we are a better team. We sure didn't come to play tonight and hopefully that will change Thursday night. Turnovers killed us and you're not going to win many games scoring what we scored tonight.”
Edwardsburg took the lead, slight as it may have been, in the early minutes of the game. The Bucks scored the opening basket after a steal at mid-court by Emily Ross, the first of five for Ross in the game, to take a 2-0 lead. For the night Ross finished the game with nine points.
The Eddies came back with a 3-pointer by Stephanie Koontz, who led the Eddies with seven points, that gave her team a 3-2 lead. Buchanan tied the game at three with a free throw by Danielle Bachleda before Koontz put the Eddies up by two for their final lead of the game 5-3 with 2:46 to play in the first quarter.
Hayley Cashier, who scored 15 in the game, put the Bucks up for good with a pair of buckets and Bachleda sank a bucket with two seconds left for a Buck 9-5 lead to end the quarter.
Buchanan found their offense in the second quarter as they reeled off 12 unanswered points to take a 20-5 lead with 1:52 in the half.
The Eddies could only manage four points in the quarter, those came in the final 1:30 of the half, to go into the locker room down 20-9.
The only bright spot for the Eddies was they won the battle of the boards in the first half out hustling the Bucks on the boards 18-7 in the half and finished holding a 28-26 edge at games end.
It was the turnovers that hurt Edwardsburg as they committed 18 in the first half, 28 to finish the night.
The Bucks, a team that has had trouble in that area, held their turnovers to just six in the opening half.
That Buck defense held the Eddies scoreless in the third quarter and limited the Eddies to just five points in the half. Hillary Faulkner also had five picks in the game.
Kristin Toney pulled down eight boards for the Eddies as did Cashier for the Bucks and Ross came away with seven.
Edwardsburg will host River Valley on Thursday and Buchanan will travel to Bridgman to take on the league leading Bees also on Thursday.
Edwardsburg – 5 4 0 5 14
Buchanan- 9 11 11 6 37