Mooresville won the turnover and rebounding battle against Columbus East in Saturday’s non-conference girls basketball contest, and it showed significantly in the first half, with the Pioneers taking advantage of several second chance opportunities and converting turnovers into points to hand the Olympians a 74-51 loss.
“We need to rebound a lot better,” East sophomore Koryn Greiwe said. “We need to get off to a better start and not start so bad.”
Mooresville (4-3) took advantage of Olympian turnovers and some second-chance opportunities to jump ahead 6-0. Once East (5-2) got out of its rough start, they were finally able to establish rhythm to eventually cut to only a 17-15 deficit after the first quarter. Paige Gregory scored the Pioneers’ first 12 points.
Whitley Rankin tied the game with two free throws, but then two 3-pointers from Ally Garber extended the Mooresville lead back up to 23-17. That only started the bleeding for the Olympians since the Pioneers then went on a 7-2 run that forced an East timeout trailing 30-19.
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It only got worse for the Olympians following the timeout. Mooresville went on a 10-4 run and eventually possessed a 42-25 halftime lead.
Gregory scored 23 points in the first half for the Pioneers, and Gabby Dean lead the East scoring with eight. Greiwe was held to just seven first half points.
Mooresville carried the momentum over into the second half and doubled up East at 50-25 with about three minutes left in the third quarter. Olympians coach Danny Brown then pulled his starters for the rest of the period. East was outscored 13-2 in the quarter.
Greiwe finished with a team-high 22 points for the Olympians. Gregory finished with 25 points to lead all scorers.
East has a tough stretch of games heading into Christmas. Following Bloomington North on Tuesday, the Olympians will travel to take on the top-ranked team in Class A, Loogootee, on Saturday, have a road game against Martinsville Dec. 10 and then will host Class 4A No. 9 Jeffersonville on Dec. 14 before visiting crosstown rival Columbus North on Dec. 19.
“I’m not losing faith in this team. It’s just one bad game, and we don’t need to put our heads down because of this,” Greiwe said. “We’ll get back to practice. We have a lot of hard games coming up.”
