Turnovers plague Salina South girls in Salina Invitational loss to defending champ Liberal
Even when they held Liberal in check defensively, Salina South's girls couldn't make the Redskins pay.
Liberal, the four-time defending Salina Invitational Tournament champion, never allowed it.
After tying the game early in the second quarter, the Cougars did not score over the last 6 1/2 minutes of the half and fared no better after the break as No. 2 seed Liberal pulled away for a 46-22 first-round victory Thursday night at the South gym.
"We did everything we needed to on the defensive end to be in the game," said South coach Justin Ebert, whose Cougars fell to 2-8 and will face Buhler in a 6 p.m. consolation semifinal Friday at South. "We just turned the ball over and turned the ball over at the offensive end.
"I just felt our girls were lackadaisical with their passes. Some of the credit goes to Liberal, but I was very disappointed with the way we handled the offensive end."
After South got a basket from Elena Herbel and two Sydney Peterson free throws to tie the game at 12 with 6:35 left in the first half, it was all Liberal. The Redskins scored the next seven points to lead 19-12 at the break and then held the Cougars to 10 points in the second half to blow it open.
"We always have our defense to back us up," said Liberal senior guard Ashley Carillo, the most valuable player in last year's tournament. "Once our defense (shut South down), our offense got going."
With the victory, Liberal improved to 8-1 and will face No. 3 seed Andover in a 3 p.m. semifinal Friday at Kansas Wesleyan's Mabee Arena. Andover took down Buhler, 50-18, in Thursday's early first-round game at South.
"We work a lot on making teams turn the ball over and turning that into points," said Carillo, who led Liberal with 13 points.
South had eight turnovers in the pivotal second quarter and 27 for the game.
"We had multiple opportunities," Ebert said. "We came in at halftime down seven and I felt we had played pretty well. But you have to play at both ends."
When the Cougars didn't turn the ball over, they still shot just 26.9% from the floor. Liberal wasn't much better, finishing at 34%, but thanks to the South turnovers had twice as many shots.
Peterson led South in scoring with 10 points, but managed just four after hitting a pair of first-quarter 3-pointers. Kylie Arnold led the Cougars in rebounding with five.
This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Turnovers plague Salina South girls in Salina Invitational loss to Liberal
