Published: March 07, 2007 11:36 pm      

Marple marauds through Montcalm

CHARLESTON — Miss Marple and her mates solved Montcalm’s mastery on Wednesday. Kasey Marple of South Harrison High School had eight rebounds and teammate Leah Fletcher poured in 22 points as the Hawks sent the Montcalm Lady Generals to a 48-33 defeat in the Class A quarterfinals of the state girls tournament at the Charleston Civic Center Coliseum.

Montcalm (20-3), which played stifling defense in three postseason games, shot only 21.4 percent from the field and was out-rebounded 40-31, exiting the tournament in a first-round game for the third straight year.

“At some point in time during the game you’ve got to put it in the hole,” said the coach of the Lady Generals, Jimmy McPherson. “We just battled with our shot all night long.”

Hawks coach Joe Johnson said, “They were having to shoot either off the dribble or with a hand in their face. ... Everybody filled in real well and played their roles.”

McPherson said, “We felt like our (defensive) pressure bothered them, sometimes. But if you do that all the time, they’ll counter it. We felt we had to spot our pressure in the second half.”

A triumvirate of Generals hit three-pointers in the first quarter — Krislyn Bogart, Eva Grose and Tara Havens — to give Montcalm an 11-7 lead. The Hawks’ Fletcher drained a trey from the left corner at the end of the period for a 12-11 advantage — and South Harrison never gave up the lead, going on an 11-0 first-half run.

The last score of the first was Montcalm’s only field goal of the second quarter, a layup by Bogart cutting through the lane to produce a 20-15 halftime margin.

Twice in the third quarter, the Lady Generals closed the gap to two points. Midway through the period, Kerri Tiller snatched a steal — she had three during the game — and Eva Grose connected with a putback and was fouled with the score 24-22, but she missed the resulting foul shot.

The Hawks finished out the quarter on a 5-0 run and Montcalm was 0-for-5 shooting.

Tiller said, “I thought if we could get it inside real well, we could get over the (scoring) hump.”

That never happened.

Marple said, “We saw from the tapes that we’d have to hit the boards hard.” A 5-foot-6 senior, Marple combined with 6-foot Joanna Dempsey and 5-10 Roxanne Young to frustrate Montcalm’s attempts to go inside on offense.

McPherson said, “I don’t think that we got beat on the boards tonight. We just couldn’t convert those rebounds. ... They do a good job (of) boxing out. We did OK on the boards.”

South Harrison (18-5) made 11 of 14 foul shots in the last 3 1/2 minutes of the game to expand its final spread.

McPherson said, “I’m proud of the girls for their season. ... We’ve won a lot of basketball games over the last four years.”

Grose, Tiller and Summer Faw all completed their senior season on the Civic Center floor. McPherson said after the game, “It was a very emotional locker room.”

“It’s pretty tough,” Grose said quietly in the post-game press conference. “This was my last high school basketball game.”

Grose led Montcalm with 14 rebounds and 13 points. She and Bogart combined for 10 of the Generals’ 12 made field goals. Kayla Pennington dished three assists.

Fletcher was 10-for-12 in free throws and contributed four assists and two steals.

“Leah is our do-it-all person,” Johnson said. Referring to Montcalm’s defense, he said, “She just pretty much broke it down all by herself.”

Fletcher said, “I was just taking what I could get. ... I just tried to stay calm, not get caught up in the excitement.”

McPherson said, “To come up here, be close, just lose it at the end, it’s rough. ... We came up here and played hard. We wish (South Harrison) success.”

The Hawks will play the winner of the game between No. 1 Charleston Catholic and No. 8 Huntington St. Joseph Catholic, which was still underway late Wednesday night.

— Contact Tom Bone at

tbone@bdtonline.com



At the Charleston Civic Center

MONTCALM (20-3)

Krislyn Bogart 5-18 0-2 12, Kerri Tiller 1-5 0-0 3, Megan Coeburn 0-4 2-2 2, Eva Grose 5-15 2-3 13, Kayla Pennington 0-2 0-0 0, Kayla Dinger 0-0 0-0 0, Tara Havens 1-8 0-2 2, Niki Perry 0-0 0-0 0, Lindsey Hamblin 0-0 0-0 0, Ariel Hodges 0-0 0-0 0, Brooke Bailey 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-56 5-11 33.

SOUTH HARRISON (18-5)

Joanna Dempsey 4-5 1-2 9, Leah Fletcher 5-10 10-12 22, Kasey Marple 2-8 2-5 6, Roxanne Young 2-4 1-1 5, Jessica Harrouff 0-2 0-1 0, Cathleen Stallman 0-1 0-0 0, Alex McAtee 0-0 3-4 3, Emily Webb 0-1 0-0 0, Megan Antrobious 0-0 0-0 0, Quinn Loudin 0-0 1-2 1, Brittany Kniceley 1-1 0-0 2, Tina Riffle 0-0 0-0 1. Totals 14-32 18-27 48.

Montcalm.........................11 4 9 9 — 33

South Harrison................12 8 11 17 — 48

Three-point goals: MHS 4-20 (Bogart 2-6, Tiller 1-4, Coeburn 0-3, Grose 1-2, Pennington 0-1, Havens 0-4); SH 2-7 (Fletcher 2-5, Stallman 0-1, Webb 0-1). Fouled out: MHS, Bogart. SH, none. Total fouls: MHS 20, SH 10.