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Comets basketball routs Central Methodist, 82-56
By Eric Wade
Daily Mail Sports Editor
The Cottey College Comets basketball team made its return to the gym at Hinkhouse Center Wednesday night, thinking it might have a stiff challenge ahead when the Central Methodist University junior varsity squad came to town.
"These are games, you know, when it says JV on the roster and on the schedule, people tend to think, you know, they're not as good," Comets head coach Dave Ketterman said. "But that's a solid JV."
That challenge turned out to be not nearly as difficult as expected, however, as the Comets rolled to a dominant victory by a final score of 82-56.
All season long, the Comets and Ketterman have seen their share of frustrations come and go, especially when it comes to offensive production. Though the Comets haven't had much trouble putting up points on a number of occasions, it has been exceedingly rare, to say the least, for Ketterman to get more than three players into double figures in a single game. Such was not the case Wednesday, however, as four Comets finished the night with double-digit scoring efforts and three of them eclipsed 10 points before the first half was over.
Those four players -- Caley Shaffstall, Casey Heger, Lindsey Denney and Cassie Hale -- have all shown flashes of significant offensive prowess at times, but haven't been able to put their efforts together on a consistent basis, up to this point. By the time all was said and done in Wednesday's contest, however, those four players combined for 64 of Cottey's 82 points.
The most prolific of those offensive performances came from Shaffstall, who finished the night with a game-high 23 points and was 7-for-8 in 3-pointers. Of those 23 points, 12 came in the contest's first 20 minutes in the form of four 3-pointers.
Heger wasn't close behind as she finished with 19 -- 10 in the first half -- while Hale finished the night with 12 and Denney had 10. All 12 of Hale's points came in the opening half.
"We talked a little more specifics this week about who has the ability to score, where," Ketterman said. "You know, we talked about Caley shooting, I don't know, 36, 37 percent from three, so we need to get her more looks, more touches there. We know that Casey, we need to get her more touches in the lane and Lindsey Denney."
Though most of the offense came from those four players -- especially in the first half, when Hale, Denney, Shaffstall and Heger were responsible for 36 of Cottey's 50 points -- they weren't the only ones who were able to make shots. As a team, the Comets finished the contest's first 20 minutes shooting exactly 50 percent (22-for-44), which resulted in a blowout, almost before things really even got going.
By the end of the first half, it was already clear who would come out on top as the Comets had one of their best halves of the season, taking a 50-20 advantage into the locker room.
"It helped that we made some shots," Ketterman said. "The game just becomes so much easier when you can make some shots. It makes a coach look really good."
Though the Comets weren't quite able to keep up as much intensity on the offensive end of the floor in the second half, they never really did stop making their coach look good, as Ketterman put it. By the time all was said and done, the Comets shot just 11-for-33 from the field to bring their game total down to just under 43 percent.
"I just thought that our ball movement was good tonight," Ketterman said. "I thought we found the open man."
It wasn't just the offense that helped the Comets work their way to such a dominant victory, however. Defensively, the Comets allowed Central Methodist to connect on just 38.6 percent of its shots and won the rebounding battle, 50-38.
On top of that, the Comets protected the ball well, committing just nine turnovers to Central Methodist's 17.
"I thought we did a good job of taking care of the basketball, too," Ketterman said.
With Wednesday's win, the Comets improved to 9-10 on the season and will be right back in action on Saturday, taking on a much tougher opponent in the Lady Pioneers of North Arkansas College.
"We were trying to use this game to try to get ready for North Ark," Ketterman said. "North Ark. has one of the top 3-point shooters in D-II."
That shooter, Jaimie Villines, is averaging 48 percent from beyond the arc this season and will likely present a unique challenge the Comets haven't seen yet this season, especially since she isn't the only player on the Lady Pioneers' roster who is a capable perimeter shooter. In total, the Lady Pioneers have five players averaging 35 percent or better from long range this season.
Tipoff in Saturday's game is scheduled for 1 p.m., in the gym at Cottey's Hinkhouse Center.