Lady Falcons’ turnovers doom Darlington against Hartsville
Frankie Johnson is finally back on the court, shown above making a basket in the third period against Hartsville at home in Darlington.
Photo by Drake Horton
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Riding into the Falcons Nest on a high note, winners of its last two region games, the Darlington Lady Falcons were unable to keep the momentum riding, losing instead to the Hartsville Lady Red Foxes 45-37 on Friday night.
In a game that went back and forth, lead change after lead change, there was one major difference between Darlington and Hartsville and that was turnovers. While the Lady Red Foxes had few the Lady Falcons had more than what could be counted.
From poor dribbling, arrant passes or the inability to inbound the basketball, which seemed to be the biggest problem out of all those, Darlington gave Hartsville an extra abundance of offensive possessions and that was just too much for the Lady Falcons to overcome.
“It was a lack of execution,” Darlington girls head coach Frances Field said on all of the turnovers the Lady Falcons committed during the game. “They played hard, they always play hard, but it was a lack of execution tonight we had too many turnovers.”
The game mirrored a lot of characteristics of the previous game between the two opponents, with it being close for a majority of the time and Hartsville finishing the game off with a big enough of a run to close the game out.
There was one major difference, however, and that difference was the second quarter. In the first game Hartsville outscored the Lady Falcons 26-3 in the second quarter, going in at the half down 31-15.
This time Darlington had no intentions of digging itself a whole so deep and instead went into half tied at 17.
By end of the third quarter, Hartsville only had a one-point lead and there was serious thought that Darlington was about to be on the verge of winning its third straight region game.
In the end, however, the turnovers were just too much and it ended up leading to a Lady Red Fox 7-0 run to close the game out and while the loss ended a nice, little run by the Lady Falcons Fields is excited about the growth of her team.
“I am excited,” Fields said on the state of her team. “I feel like the girls are starting to get it, like basketball is starting to click for them. As a coach that is what you want, there has been a big progression from our first game to where we are at right now. I feel like everybody is contributing, everybody has gotten better on the floor.
This might not be the year for the Lady Falcons, but with only one senior and the growth the team has shown over the last few weeks the future of the program, under Fields’ direction, looks to be bright.
