Prep Hoops: Gallatin County can't capitalize late at Marion Invite
Gallatin County head girls' basketball coach Robert Patton had a pretty good idea of what he was getting himself into when he enrolled his Hawks in last week's Marion Invitational Tournament.
Gallatin County, the smallest school in the invite, was going to have its hands full with the likes of 3A schools such as Marion, Herrin and Massac County along with formidable competition like Carterville and Vienna.
After an 0-2 start against Carterville and Herrin, Gallatin County railed with wins over Massac County and Marion and almost came out with a winning record, but fell late to Vienna 73-69 Saturday for a 2-3 record to start the season.
Hawks junior guard Hailey Chubb was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament after capping off her week with a season-high 38 points in the loss to the Eagles.
Chubb quickly had eight points in the first quarter against Vienna, just as quickly she had three fouls and sent to the bench with 5:25 to play and Gallatin County holding a 12-1 lead. Vienna tied the game at 12 with 45 seconds to play in the first and took a 16-12 lead after the first quarter.
Gallatin County didn't score again until the 7:20 mark in the second quarter when Harlie Turner got the Hawks back on the board and when Chubb checked back in with 3:16 in the second, Gallatin County trailed 26-18 and was behind 32-26 at the end of the first half.
Vienna led 54-48 after three quarters of play and Turner knotted the game at 54-all on a pair of free throws with 6:18 to play. Gallatin County held a brief one-point 55-54 lead with 6:03 to play after a Chubb free throw, but would never be able to extend it.
A deuce by Turner and a trey by Chubb got Gallatin County to within one at 68-67 and the Hawks got the stops they needed on defense, but came up empty on the offensive end on four possessions.
"We'd come down and throw stuff up or turn the ball over and we just didn't play smart late in the game," Patton said. "To be honest, we didn't play smart in the first quarter and we didn't play smart in the fourth quarter."
Patton said the decisions late were a harder pill to swallow than the start Gallatin County blew.
"Probably how bad we played late and (Hailey) was in the game then and our decisions weren't very good and those are the things to make a deep postseason run, those are the things you haver to stop now. That's why I wanted to play in this tournament to see where we were at and what we needed to work on and I did.
"We played bad one night out of the five and that was the second night (against Herrin). We held our own against Carterville once Hailey went out, but against Herrin we just played terrible. Our decisions and effort were not very good, past that, I was very pleased with the effort."
Caitlin Lynch and Turner both finished in double figures for the Hawks as Turner dumped in 16 and Lynch tacked on 10.
Morgan Roderick finished with four points and Audrey Jackson had a free throw.
Vienna had a team-high 21 points from Alyssa Jones, while Callie Clay tacked on 14, Alena Cowsert put up 13 and Lindsey Holhubner tacked on 12.
Gallatin County 53, Marion 41
In the win over Marion Friday night, Chubb scored a game-high 24 points as the Hawks went on to post a 53-41 win over Marion.
Lynch and Roderick each added eight points for Gallatin County, while Kaylee McGuire, Avery Scates and Audrey Jackson all had three points. Valeria Ahrens had two points, while Gracie Sauls and Turner both had a free throw.
Gallatin County returns to action tonight (Monday) when they travel to Dongola and will be at Goreville on Tuesday night.
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register and Eldorado Daily Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.