Springfield 90 Streaks 62

Springfield certainly proved why they are preseason #2 rated team in AAA class in Illinois. They have size, they are athletic, and they are very well coached. It would have taken a great shooting night for us to have played with Springfield. We were able to stay with them thru three quarters. In the last third quarter we were down by as few as 7 points, but could not get stops on defense or hit some shots in a row.

Early in the game it looked like Springfield might blow out Galesburg early. In the first quarter at one point the Senators were up over 12 points. Galesburg answered the challenge an actually cut the lead to 5 in the second quarter. At that point the tempo looked like what Galesburg was looking for. Early in the second, it looked like both teams were going to be in the 90's-- that turned out to be partially true.

Field goal attempts-   58  (lowest of the season and well below goal of 72)
Threes attempts--   33   (lowest of the season and below goal of 36)
O-reb pct.-- 41%  (reach goal)
Forced turnovers-- 19  (lowest of year and off the goal of 26)
Shot differential--    minus 7

So we reached only one of our goals in this game. It would be easy to say that this must have been a bad game for Galesburg. But for three quarters this may have been our best game of the year. But the inability to reach our numbers is really a tribute to how outstanding Springfield is as a team.

Statistically Jamie Johnson came up with 6 offensive boards. It was especially satisfying to see how well we handled Springfields great press. While we had some turnovers early, Tai did an especially good job of attacking the pressure and creating some nice 3 on 2 situations. We also did a much better job pressing without fouling- we fouled only 10 times. Springfield seemed intent on taking away our threes. As a result we were able to be aggressive and drive to the basket. This attack mode resulted in us shooting 30 free throws (obviously that is one reason our fga number was low).

At Quincy on Tuesday.