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: NIsportsShamokin tops SCA in K of C rematch
Published: January 5, 2010
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charlie roth/Staff Photo Shamokin Area's Tanika Gonzalez (23) drives the baseline past Southern Columbia's Jordan Marks during non-league girls basketball action Monday night at Shamokin Area.
COAL TOWNSHIP - Sequels are never as good as the original.
After last week's Knights of Columbus Holiday Tournament, the table was set for another shootout between Shamokin and Southern Columbia.
While the Tigers were never out of it, at times they seemed ... out of it.
Shamokin (6-2) won every quarter on the way to a 56-45 victory over Southern, giving the Tigers their fifth loss (3-5) of the season on a night when they committed 21 turnovers.
Despite getting 14 points from Tanika Gonzalez in her first start of the year, and 11 points off the bench from Cassie Grow, as well as 14 points from Tara Sabotchick, who is averaging nearly 20 points on the season.
"Tiki has been playing great, and I gave her a start," Shamokin head coach Bill Callahan said. "She played fabulous. Cassie Grow came off the bench and played really well."
Despite the win, Callahan wasn't thrilled with his team's performance, especially coming off a 46-33 loss at Milton on Saturday.
The Indians had a two-minute scoreless stretch to open the second quarter, although Southern couldn't capitalize, and had similar scoreless stretches in the third quarter as Southern tried to up the tempo.
"I'm very disappointed," Callahan said. "We won three of our last four, but we're not playing well. We need to play better. It's disappointing and frustrating right now."
The Indians have three more games this week against Jersey Shore, Mifflinburg and Shikellamy, all Heartland Conference Divisiion I games.
But part of the problem for Callahan is that Sabotchick scored
only three points in the first half and was 3-for-12 from the floor for the game, and Summer Reigle, although she hustled all over the court to collect seven rebounds, scored only two points to push her total for the last three games to eight points.
"Hopefully, we can turn it around, that's my job as a coach," Callahan said. "If we get back to playing like we did our first three games, we're going to be a pretty good basketballl team. Right now, there's something missing and I've got to figure out what it is.
"That's been the frustrating part with this group. We play to everyone's level. Whether you're good or not, we play to your level. It's always close games."
Southern, after opening the season 3-1, has hit a skid of four losses in a row. Cynthia Adams led the Tigers with 14 points, and Kayla Lavella added 10 off the bench, but the Tigers shot only 18-of-58.
"We just lost four in a row, and that's tough," Southern Columbia coach Joellen Gallinot said. "I said to them tonight, there's only so many times you can miss your layups and miss your foul shots and walk with the ball. Hopefully, we can strengthen that up."
Game Summary
SCA (3-5) 8 14 11 12 - 45
Shamokin (6-2) 11 15 17 13 - 56
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