When shots aren’t falling — and they certainly weren’t early Wednesday in Allen Community College’s women season opener — head coach Leslie Crane knows just the elixir.
“I tell the girls, if you’re ready to play defense and rebound the ball, the shots will fall when they need to,” Crane said, shortly after ACC thumped visiting McPherson Junior Varsity 68-41. “But you have to do those two things consistently. It doesn’t take a lot of talent to do that. It just takes hard work.”
Despite shooting a cool 30% from the field in the first half, Allen had little trouble dispatching McPherson, thanks in large part to offensive rebounding.
The Red Devils corralled 17 offensive rebounds in the first half alone — 29 for the game — and outrebounded McPherson 47 to 21.
“Defensively, we did some nice things,” Crane said. “We got sloppy in the fourth quarter. Very sloppy. Our concentration wasn’t where it needed to be.”
Allen committed 22 turnovers, 13 in the second half, as McPherson ended the game with a 15-11 run.
But by then, the Red Devils had things well in hand. Allen led 32-14 at halftime and 57-26 after three.
Khassidy Warr paced the Allen attack, scoring 15 of her game-high 23 after halftime to go with a team-high eight rebounds.
Sara Ortiz followed with 14 points and six boards. Khamille Ware had seven rebounds. Mafalda Chambel and Sarang West had four and three assists, respectively.
Crane, who is entering her 36th year as a head coach, admits to feeling the same pangs of excitement at the start of the season.
“I still have a passion for what I do,” she said. “I like to be out there, and I know the kids will feed off of that, so I need to be high intensity.”
She attributed ACC’s early missed shots to “butterflies” associated with season-openers in front of a boisterous home crowd.
She expects her lineup will be a work in progress.
“It’ll change, depending on how they do in practice,” Crane said. “We had a lot of good things, but if we want to be a good team, we’ll have to be more consistent.”
Allen is in Arkansas City Friday and Saturday for the Cowley Classic.
McPherson JV- 7-7-12-15—41
