Dogs Walk The Plank

DAYTON -- The Lady Bulldogs put up a good fight in the second half of Tuesday's game, but the effort wasn't enough to overcome the Pomeroy Pirates' commanding lead.

Dayton lost its fourth game of the season, 58-27, Tuesday night, its record slipping further to 4-0. Yet the at-home loss wasn't quite as bad as the 54-20 defeat against the Pirates earlier in the season and girls stuck together until the bitter end.

The game started as a largely defensive one. The first points didn't materialized until almost halfway through the first quarter and the Bulldogs only lit up the board with one minute to go in the period when McKayla Bickelhaupt scored a twopointer for her team.

By then, the Pirates were up 12-2 and continued to pile on the pressure, drawing repeated fouls. The quarter ended, 13-2.

" We were flat," head coach Clayton Strong said, noting the team has had same lethargy in every game so far this season. "It's something we're working on."

The Pirates were again the first to score in the second period, opening with one of several treys in the game. Poor passing, miscues, ineffective rebounding and poor shooting from the field plagued the Lady Bulldogs for the rest of the half and numerous fouls sent Pomeroy to the free-throw line.

A trey from Samura Miller was the first Dayton score in the second quarter, coming at 5:25 before the end of the half.

With 3:30 to go, Strong called a timeout, clearly frustrated with his team's lackadaisical performance.

"I gave it to them pretty good," Strong said. "I don't care if we lose by one hundred points, but we better be playing as good as we can."

At that point, the Pirates were in possession of a 20-point lead with every intention not to look back.

"They have a really good squad," Strong acknowledged. "But our girls stuck together as a group. They want to get better."

Something his team did do better Tuesday was contain star junior guard Penelope Bustos. Bustos scored 23 points pretty much at will during the two teams' first encounter, but she only managed 15 points in this week's competition, Strong said.

After the break, the Dayton girls came out swinging with Nicole Lambert scoring a bucket and drawing a foul. The Bulldogs were off to a better start, posting seven unanswered points until the Pirates quickly put an end to any home team come-frombehind notions with a twopointer and a trey.

At halftime, Strong said he told his girls they ought to play with such intensity they'd come "crawling off the floor" at the end.

"We talked about what needed to happen," he said. "And they did that."

But it was too little too late.

The third quarter ended, 45-19, a 26-point spread. The difference only grew in the last period despite scrappy performances from Courtney Fuller, Sarah Phillips, Lexie Ramirez, Malia Frame and Lambert.

Dayton vs. Pomeroy 27-58

Day 26119-27

Pom 13 20 15 13 - 58

Samura Miller 7

Nicole Lambert 7

Jessica Tate 6

McKayla Bickelhaupt 4

Malia Frame 2