The high school gym’s floor may still be wet as it was raining 3-pointers all night Thursday.
The Cardinals basketball teams combined for 15 3-pointers against Atchison, but only the girls team was able to come out victorious.
Freshman Brynn Deterding and senior Parker Long each had three 3-pointers for the girls team on the night. Deterding led the Cardinals in scoring with 17 while Long had 11 points in the team’s 47-27 win.
Head coach Brandon Parker credited the team’s ball movement for the nice night beyond the arch.
“I think that we have the potential to play some really nice basketball when we move it,” Parker said. “I think the crowd enjoyed watching it. We were finding that open person and the ball is moving in different zones. So, it was good.”
The Cardinals’ ball movement led to an early lead in the game as well. The team passed it around until senior Kenzie Yoder got open near the hoop for the first basket of the game. Then, senior Lainey Orr made a great pass to Deterding for another bucket.
Yoder and Orr also connected on a play in which Yoder found Orr open under the basket to put the Cardinals up 15-4 early in the second quarter. The team took a 19-10 lead into halftime.
Yoder finished the game with 12 points while Orr had three.
Even though they had the lead at halftime, Parker said something just felt off with the Cardinals.
“We just weren’t quite ourselves. We play hard, but our energy level just outside of playing hard just wasn’t great,” Parker said. “So, that was kind of the challenge to them was to change that because they’re in control. That’s a controllable.”
The Cardinals answered that call to start the second half. The team sparked a 19-3 scoring run in the third quarter to extend their lead to 25.
Long turned it on during the run as she hit all three of her 3s during the hot stretch.
Long said finding that missing energy out of halftime was key to the big scoring run.
“I mean, the first quarter it just kind of felt dead in the gym, but we brought some of our own energy and just tried moving the ball the best we could,” Long said.
Atchison answered right back though with their own scoring stretch as the Phoenix scored 14 straight points to close out the third quarter and start the fourth to cut the Cardinals’ lead from 25 to 11 at 38-27.
Parker said Atchison’s run was more about the way the Cardinals started playing.
“We kind of had the initial lighting of that hot streak that they went on by us just not playing clean basketball, and they took advantage of it and hit some shots,” Parker said.
Senior Jayla Erpelding said Atchison’s run was a little nerve-racking, but she was determined to find a way to put the game away.
“I just got worried that they were going to somehow come back and make it a game,” Erpelding said. “So, I was personally trying to make sure that did not happen.”.
After the push by the Phoenix, Deterding scored seven points down the stretch to help seal the Cardinals’ victory.
The win improves the Cardinals to 3-0 on the season. Long said it has been fun to see the team play together as one to start the season.
“We’re just playing as a team, honestly. Pushing the ball in is definitely working great. Defensively, we’ve really made the other teams’ offense struggle,” Long said.
Hear more about the team’s win from Long, Erpelding and Parker by watching the Kaw Valley State Bank post-game show.
On the boys side, the team hit nine 3-pointers on the night, but it wasn’t quite enough as the Cardinals lost 57-46.
Senior Logan Sullivan hit four 3s and had 18 points in the first half to help put the Cardinals up 25-24 going into the locker room.
Sullivan said his teammates did a good job of drawing Atchison in and then finding him open.
“As soon as we started driving it opened up outside,” he said.
Sullivan finished the game with seven made 3s and 28 points.
Atchison took over in the second half, though, as they went on two crucial scoring runs to help them close out the game.
The Phoenix had a 6-0 run near the end of the third quarter to help them build a lead heading into the fourth, and then they had a 10-0 run to open the fourth quarter.
Head coach Kyle Deterding said turnovers were the cause of the runs.
“They turned up the heat. They turned up the heat and really got after us and forced a lot of live-ball turnovers,” Deterding said. “We told them, I said, ‘points in transition, points off turnovers were going to be huge in this game.’ In the first half, we were pretty solid. The second half, I’ll bet both of those runs were points off turnovers.”
Junior Micaiah Jerome said he looks forward to seeing how the team responds next week after losses to Atchison and Mill Valley this week.
“Hopefully, we can bounce back after two tough losses and get back on our feet,” Jerome said.
The Cardinals fall to 1-2 on the season.
The teams will take on Paola Tuesday. The girls will tip off at 6 p.m. followed by the boys at 7:30 p.m.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected].
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