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By Jordan Burton
Springfield, MO – Through seven games Nixa coach Jenny Perryman has been displeased with her team’s defensive effort, prompting her to get back to the basics.
“We’ve really worked on our on the ball defense,” said Perryman. “It’s something that we’ve been really good at in the past but in the first seven games it’s been inexcusable; we’ve given up too much. We’ve set up our post for failure by getting them in foul trouble so we’ve worked on that diligently for the last few practices and i think they’ve taken hold of that and improved quite a bit.”
That improvement helped Nixa hold Springfield Catholic in check, guiding the Lady Eagles to a 49-37 win in the opening round of the Pink and White Lady Classic on Tuesday.
The most impressive stretch spanned the entire third quarter – as well as bits of the second and fourth quarter – where Nixa limited Catholic to just one field goal and a pair of free throws for nearly 12 minutes of game action, allowing the Lady Eagles to turn a 17-16 deficit to a 30-21 lead early in the fourth quarter.
At the heart of that run was Lakyn Wools.
She finished with 11 points, but her effort defensively helped Nixa hold Catholic leading scorer Madison Chittenden to just 10 points, five of which came over the final three quarters. The sophomore standout didn’t record a field goal after the first quarter.
“I thought we did a great job shutting down their shooters and shutting down Chittenden,” said Perryman. “She’s an unbelievable player and Lakyn was able to hold her to 10 points. I ran out and gave her a hug as soon as the buzzer went off because that was a focus for us defensively. How we won today makes me feel even more proud of them as a coach.”
Bissett Michaelson also reached double figures for Nixa with 10 points.
Chittenden was the only player to reach double figures for Catholic. The Lady Irish continue to identify roles and battle injury problems.
Dan Stander was pleased with the effort his team showed on Tuesday.
“We knew we were outmatched and we knew they had us in height but that’s every night for us,” said Stander. “We start five sophomores and there’s some inexperience there and our biggest kid is 5-foot-8, they have some 6-footers over there. That’s why we’re in this tournament is to get these games that make us better. Now we’re hoping to get two or three more games in and – as our kids say – come out on top on the loser’s side.”
Catholic will battle Parkview on Wednesday in the consolation round. The Lady Vikings lost to top-seeded North Little Rock 74-36 in the opening round.
North Little Rock is the reigning 7A state champion in Arkansas and ranked No. 24 nationally by MaxPreps. The chance to play them is something that Perryman and Nixa are looking forward to.
“We talk about opportunities and that’s kind of been our word,” said Perryman. “There’s a waiting list for this tournament and people want to be in it and people want a chance to play those teams. We’re apart of something big here and we want to move right any chance we get and we wants to play at O’Reilly any chance we get. We see the challenges tomorrow, but we want to get out and have a blast.”
