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Lady Devil Mazie Helpman, junior, drives the ball and shoots and scores in the away 68-51 loss against Murphy on Friday night.
While the final score might not indicate as much, Swain girls’ basketball played Murphy tight for most of the night on Friday. The Bulldogs used a press defense to blitz to a large early lead and were able to maintain the cushion the rest of the game en route to a 68-51 victory.
“We spotted them about 15 points right off the bat,” said Swain Head Coach Michael Turner. “We got down quick turning the ball over in their press and they made some easy conversions.”
Turner cited several key figures in detailing his team’s inability to close the first quarter point chasm.
“I think we had 25 turnovers for the game, and they had 27 transitional points that they got off of our turnovers,” Turner said. “We were 7-for-17 from the free throw line and they shot 48 percent from the floor, so there are a lot of factors there that we can control that we didn’t do a very good job of. They had 17 offensive rebounds.”
The loss drops Swain to 1-2 for the season. The team will travel to Robbinsville on Tuesday before hosting Blue Ridge Early College on Friday. Turner said he is using the film of the Murphy game to prep for this week.
“We watch film sessions every practice, just about, and during our film sessions we review what we need to improve on, things we can do better, and things that we did well,” he explained. “Robbinsville is a good team. They are going to come out and press us kind of like Murphy did.”
Swain played Robbinsville three times last year, dropping all three contests to the Knights. The Lady Devils also lost their two 2020 games against Blue Ridge, both by single-digit margins. Turner said he believes it’s only a matter of time until his team’s shots start to drop and the close losses are converted into victories.
“We’re taking good shots,” he said. “If you look at the film, we are taking good shots, open shots, and eventually you’ve got to hit those.”