GRAVETTE — Tim Rippy couldn’t have asked for a better start to his coaching career as head girls’ basketball coach at Siloam Springs.
The Lady Panthers got easy baskets inside on five of their first six possessions, jumped out to a large lead and cruised to a 58-26 season-opening win on the road Thursday at Gravette.
Siloam Springs scored the first 13 points of the game and was never seriously threatened at any point in the night.
“I thought we came out with great intensity,” said Rippy, who was hired in May after Brett Sanders resigned. “We did what we wanted to do defensively early in the game. We got to scout (Gravette) and knew their personnel, and I thought we had our match-ups right. We defended well early, rebounded well early. That got us going in transition. I thought we executed our half-court offense really well early getting the ball inside.”
Siloam Springs (1-0) forced three straight Gravette turnovers to open the game and Mayse Pippin, Baily Cameron and Morgan Miller each scored inside, with Miller’s being a three-point play to make it 7-0.
Pippin and Miller added buckets to make it 11-0, and Miller swished a pairof free throws for a 13-0 lead.
“We talked about what to do,” said Gravette coach Will Pittman. “We said we’ve got to have good quality offensive possessions, we’ve got to be even with them on the boards at least and we’ve got to stop their transition game. I think you saw that we turned it over on the fi rst fi ve possessions. They killed us on the boards and we didn’t stop their transition game. We knew what they were going to do.”
Gravette’s Sam Pruitt scored all 10 of her points in the first half and gave the Lady Lions (1-1) a bit of offensive life. Cameron squashed any momentum the Lady Lions had, scoring eight straight points for the Lady Panthers to make it 26-14.
Pippin added two more buckets inside and Miller and Bailee Owens scored baskets for a 34-14 lead. After a Rachel Jones 3-pointer, Siloam Springs led 40-16 at halftime.
“I thought early in the game we were smart with the basketball,” Rippy said. “We had talked about trying to pound it inside early, because we thought we had an advantage. The kids responded to that.”
Miller and Cameron each scored four more points in the third quarter as Siloam Springs pulled ahead 54-21. The fourth quarter was played with a running clock.
Cameron fi nished with14 points, while Miller had 13. Pippin chipped in nine points. Rippy was able to empty his bench in the second half.
The Lady Panthers turned their attention to Tuesday’s home game against Prairie Grove, which defeated Siloam Springs 59-52 in double overtime in the 2012-13 season opener.
“I got to see (Prairie Grove) play Bentonville,”Rippy said. “They’re a good team. They’ll play hard.”
Sports, Pages 9 on 11/27/2013