Lady Tomcats pressure Liberty into loss
Haywood High girls’ basketball coach Whitney Baird was not pleased with how her players finished the first half against the Liberty Lady Crusaders Tuesday night, giving up six straight points to allow Liberty to cut a 12-point lead to a two-possession game.
And you can definitely say she addressed those issues in the locker room during the break as Haywood knocked off Liberty Tech, 72-52.
“I yelled at them a little bit, broke a clipboard and challenged a couple of them,” Baird said with a smile. “They need to set up and play like they needed to and they met my challenge and they stepped out on the court and we had a phenomenal second half.”
The Lady Tomcats came out of the locker room and quickly stretched the lead back to 12, their matching their largest lead of the night thanks to a 9-3 run from Summer Cunningham, Madison Smith and freshman Jamirah Shutes.
No coincidence those three were the players called out in between halves.
Cunningham finished with a game-high 21 points, 17 of which came in the second half, but it was her defense Baird praised after the game.
With less than four minutes remaining and Haywood up a comfortable 19 points, Cunningham drove in and nearly jumped over the Liberty Tech defender to lay the ball in. Eight seconds later, she was at the other end of the court blocking a Lady Crusader lay-up attempt.
“She was amazing on defense,” Baird said. “She did a great job shutting down [Courtney] Fisher.”
Shutes had a couple of spectacular plays of her own in the second half including old fashioned three-point plays to end the third and begin the fourth quarters, finishing second in scoring for the Lady Tomcats with 17 points.
Haywood scored the majority of its points in transition Tuesday night, choosing to pressure and run all 32 minutes, and it forced Liberty to turn the ball over 27 times. Lady Crusaders first-year head coach James Shaw said you can’t make that many mistakes if you’re trying to beat a team tied for first in your district.
“Not to take anything away from Haywood,” Shaw said. “They’re really quick, they go to the boards well and they run the court well.
“We’ve got to cut down on turnovers. Our kids are just not there yet. We keep working on it every day, but we’re just not there yet.”
Shaw said one of the biggest areas his team needs to improve on if they want to make a postseason run is in their transition defense, something Liberty exploited all night.
“We don’t know how yet to get back, turn and look,” Shaw said. “We’re still trotting and staying even.
“Haywood is so fast if you run even when there’s a sprint to the basket, they were beating us.”
Josh Lemons 425-9636