Photo by Rudy Marquez
PLYMOUTH — Plymouth’s class of 2020 went out in a big way in their final home appearance of the season taking a 50-24 win over the Culver Academy.
The Lady Pilgrims said goodbye to Clair Tanner, Mary Kate Flynn, Alaina Clady, and Sydney Weir by doubling down on the defensive intensity to run out to a big lead that they would never relinquish.
“I thought in our 1-3-1 we were really active with our hands and got a lot of deflections,” said Plymouth coach Dave Duncan. “In the second half, I thought maybe our kids came out and thought they had it won.”
“Sara (Hunter) was on the top of our 1-3-1 and was really active,” he said. “I thought our press at the beginning of the game really got us rolling. We were getting some deflections and some steals and layups out of that. We haven’t scored a lot off of turnovers this year.”
Plymouth forced 12 CGA turnovers in the first half, eight of those in the first quarter propelling them to a 19-4 lead at the quarter break and 35-11 at the half.
“We know that we have a young group of kids who haven’t played a lot of team basketball the way other teams do,” said Academy coach Chantel Vinson. “Coming in here we knew there was a lot of great tradition and that they would be fundamentally solid. Turning the ball over didn’t help.”
“We’ve seen some growth that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet,” she said. “We came back in the second half but we took a big hit early on.”
Plymouth spread the wealth around with Sydni Weir and Lindsay Janus scoring 12 and Alaina Clady in double figures as well with 11 points. Mary Kate Flynn was a catalyst from the floor in the first half especially with four of her team-high six rebounds and all three of her team-high assists coming in the first half.
“They shared the ball,” said Duncan of his team. “Early we got Alaina (Clady) in transition a little bit and got up and down the floor. She got bodied around a little bit today, but I thought she did a nice job with it.”
“Sara (Hunter) is playing really well right now,” he said. “She is getting more comfortable with her role on the varsity team and doing a lot of nice things. “Lindsay (Janus) is shooting the ball really well right now and doing those things you want her to do in the perimeter.”
The Academy came back to cut down the miscues and make a run in the second but could never chip away at the Plymouth lead.
“I was kind of disappointed in our first half because I think we did get down,” said Vinson. “We really wanted to come in and play well and we talked about that. The shift we had in the second half was playing with the energy that we know we are capable of. The team in the first half wasn’t our team.”
“We don’t have to coach effort in this program,” she said. “They come and show up for themselves.”
Plymouth moves to 12-9 with their final NLC contest on the road at Northridge on Thursday night. The Academy is now 2-16 and will be at home with Marquette on Thursday.
•PLYMOUTH 50, CGA 24
At Plymouth
Plymouth 19 35 42 50
CGA 4 11 21 24
Plymouth (50) — Hunter 1 1-1 4, Janus 5 1-1 12, Cook 0 1-3 1, Flynn 1 0-0 2, Sheedy 2 3-4 7, Clady 4 3-6 11, Weir 5 1-1 12, Delp 0 1-2 1. Totals 18 11-18 50.
CGA (24) — Pugh 0 1-2 1, Marquell 2 1-2 6, Bird 1 0-1 2, Nash 1 3-5 5, Leeper 2 0-0 4, Miller 0 0-0 0, Johnson 3 0-0 6. Totals 9 5-9 24.
