Aggressive defense keys DHS girls win
Published 12:00 am Thursday, January 22, 2004
The 4A Demopolis High Varsity girl’s Lady Tigers continued their winning streak Tuesday night as they knocked off the 4A Choctaw County Lady Tigers 62-47.
DHS head coach Tony Pittman was extremely pleased with his teams’ defensive performance Tuesday night and looks forward to more of the same as the playoffs begin to come into focus.
“Our defense played really aggressive Tuesday night and I’m very pleased to see how well we have taken to man-to-man coverage,” Pittman said. “Things are really starting to come together for this team and I know it will not be long before we start to gel together and become one.”
The Lady Tigers also had an impressive offensive performance Tuesday night as they hit 21-of-43 from the floor Tuesday night and were 11-of-18 from the line.
Leading the way for the Lady Tigers was sophomore Shawnese Armstead with 16 points, 5 steals and 2 assist.
Following closely behind Armstead was junior Gabrielle Essex with 13 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist, along with senior Janet Woods with 12 points, 5 assist and 4 steals.
“Any time I look at my stat sheet and see three players in double figures I know that we are playing good team oriented basketball and I know that the ball is being distributed among the players. That’s the way every game is suppose to be,” Pittman said.
But there is still plenty of room for improvement for the Lady Tigers when it comes to handling the ball. The Lady Tigers pilled on the turnovers again Tuesday night with 24, which continues to be a frustrating issue for coach Pittman
“I pitched a fit about the amount of turnovers we had Tuesday night. Our problem is that we get carried away in the pace of the game sometimes,” Pittman said. “You know, there is an old saying in basketball that says, “Be quick, but don’t hurry,” and we just didn’t do that Tuesday night.”
The Lady Tigers are now (9-2) overall and (2-0) in area play and will face one of their biggest challenges thus far come Friday night when they travel to Livingston.