MANSFIELD, Ohio — Mansfield Senior coach Todd Krill sat on the bench, shaking his head in disbelief.
The Tygers had just given up another runout layup to West Holmes early in the third quarter of Thursday’s Ohio Cardinal Conference showdown at Pete Henry Gym and Krill was at a loss.
“It’s frustrating because you sit there and talk about that is how they like to get out and score their points and you just don’t have people hustling,” an agitated Krill said after the 60-33 loss to the state-ranked Knights. “It’s just very frustrating watching them run down the floor. We just did a real poor job in transition.”
West Holmes (12-1, 8-0) raced out to an 8-0 lead in the opening minutes. The Knights took advantage of three straight Senior High turnovers and built a 17-6 lead after the first quarter and took a 32-12 advantage to the break.
“We pride ourselves on our halfcourt defense,” West Holmes coach Lisa Patterson said. “Turnovers oftentimes lead to transition points so we try to win in transition defensively and offensively.”
Short-handed: Mansfield Senior (8-8, 5-4) played without Division I recruit Erica Johnson. The junior has experienced swelling in her surgically-repaired left knee.
“The last couple of games she’s got banged up a little bit,” Krill said. “We’re trying to find out what’s going on with it.”
Johnson is averaging 23 points, 10.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.5 steals a game. Her status is unknown.
“It could be a week, she could be done for the year,” Krill said. “We just don’t know.”
Talayzha Catching led the Tygers with 14 points. Rajaa Anderson added nine.
“We’ve got to step up one more notch, that means everybody on the floor,” Krill said. “We’re trying to instill in our girls that (they) need to step up their game.”
Krill was especially displeased with his team’s lack of tenacity.
“I asked them … ‘How many of you believed that we could beat West Homes tonight?’ and one girl raised her hand,” Krill said. “The rest of them just kind of stared at me. That answers some questions.
“I tell our girls a lot of things are mental. Tonight we ran offense and a lot of our sets, I would say about 50 percent of them were run wrong. That’s lack of focus.”
