Deerfield-Windsor girls open region play with victory

ALBANY — With youth comes mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be costly.

Tuesday was not one of those nights for the Deerfield-Windsor girls basketball team.

Despite getting off to a sloppy start, the Lady Knights were able to overcome and beat Terrell Academy 55-47 at the W.T. Henry Gymnasium for a victory in their first GISA Region 3-AAA game.

Both teams struggled to open the game, turning the ball over numerous times in the first quarter. The mistakes eventually diminished in the quarter for Terrell Academy, but Deerfield-Windsor was plagued by turnovers and fell behind 16-9 after the first quarter.

“Early first half, we had a lot of unforced turnovers,” Deerfield-Windsor girls coach Jeff Littleton said. “We’ve seen a lot of zones this year, so I don’t know why that was any different. We hurt ourselves, I thought.”

Deerfield took the lead in the second quarter when they went on an 11-3 run, capitalizing on multiple Terrell turnovers. The lead held for the Lady Knights until Erin Horne scored eight straight points to give the Lady Eagles a 27-20 lead.

Horne finished as the game’s leading scorer with 19 points.

Deerfield went nearly five minutes without scoring until a trey by Emilee Foy ended the drought and cut the lead to 27-23 at halftime.

The third quarter was played at a much slower pace as both teams scored single digits each. DWS finished the quarter with eight points, while Terrell scored just five. The Lady Knights went more than five minutes without scoring but trailed by just one to start the final quarter.

The fourth quarter was a back-and-forth affair with both teams trading leads until about three minutes left in the game when Deerfield-Windsor point guard Hannah Mills had to come out with cramps.

“We had a two-point lead when she had the cramp and we had to put two eight-graders out there,” Littleton said. “We actually increased the lead when that happened so go figure that.”

The Lady Knights have just three seniors on the roster and have been forced to play without Jamia Lofton who sustained a knee injury earlier this year.

Deerfield outscored Terrell 14-6 in the final four minutes of play to seal the victory.

Terrell finished the game with 35 turnovers.

“You can’t overcome 35 turnovers,” Terrell coach Keith Jones said. “You’re going to lose every ball game you ever play if you turn it over that much.”

Foy and Mills both finished the game with 14 points. The Lady Eagles also received a 10-point game from Jenna Cuff.

The win makes Deerfield-Windsor 4-6 on the year.

Deerfield-Windsor boys 56, Terrell Academy 41

The Deerfield boys team also opened region play with a victory over Terrell Academy.

The Knights jumped out to an early 9-8 lead and extended it to 25-17 at halftime.

After struggling to score to open the third quarter, DWS got hot and finished with 28 points in the quarter. The third was capped by a buzzer-beating Tyler Lowe trey that gave them a 53-30 lead.

“It certainly wasn’t very pretty,” Deerfield-Windsor boys coach Gordy Gruhl. “We aren’t going to get anything for style points that is for sure. We just didn’t shoot the ball well. It is hard to look good when you don’t shoot well.”

The Eagles were able to cut the lead to 15 with 2:46 left in the game but could not get any closer.

Deerfield’s Chandler Matthews scored a game-high 19 points while Trey Young scored 15.

Bishop Waters was Terrell’s lone double-digit scorer with 10 points.