The Lady Indians basketball team earned their fourth win of the season after defeating the Delmar Lady Wildcats convincingly 55-35 at a Jan. 29 home game. But sandwiched on either side of their big win were two blowout losses, to Henlopen North’s Sussex Central and Caesar Rodney.
Coastal Point • JESSE PRYOR
Marnisha Mitchell runs into a wall of defenders against the Delmar Lady Wildcats. But the Lady Indians prevailed regardless in a 55-35 win — marking their fourth of the season.Success has followed the Lady Indians when they have played a complete game. And their win over Delmar clearly proved that. But against the deeper talent pools of the Henlopen North, Indian River had a hard time maintaining the pace of the game.
The Lady Indians matched up well against the Lady Golden Knights in the first and fourth quarters, and actually outscored them 25-18. But, unfortunately for Indian River, games aren’t won by only playing two quarters.
Playing with intensity for an entire game is something Lady Indians head coach Summer Chorman has emphasized all season.
“The first and fourth quarters are always our best,” Chorman said. “And I think we forget to do that for the whole game.”
“They are two different caliber teams,” Chorman said of Delmar and Caesar Rodney. “They (Caesar Rodney) have 1,400 kids to choose from and, obviously, that puts us at a disadvantage.”
“Talent-wise, they were a little ahead of us. But I thought we matched up pretty well. Had we played hard the whole game, I feel we could’ve won by 20 points,” she continued.
Sussex Central outscored Indian River a whopping 31-5 in the second and third quarters, to give them enough leeway to hold off a 17-point fourth-quarter rally for a 48-30 win.
Indian River settled for first-look shots and managed to sink only one of 32 field goal attempts during that span. Sussex Central, on the other hand, out-rebounded Indian River 24-14 and was able to get the ball out into transition, where they converted 12 of 27 shots.
Caesar Rodney (13-4, 8-0) thrived on Indian River mistakes and scored primarily in transition on their way to a 73-34 win on Jan. 30.
The Lady Riders scored 38 of their 73 points in transition off of steals and after quick shots by Indian River.
Caesar Rodney’s Jazmine Reeves parlayed a game-high 10 steals into 19 points and scored eight of those in transition. Caesar Rodney had 18 team steals.
“That’s our speed,” Caesar Rodney head coach Bill Victory said. “We like to play transition basketball. We feel we can dictate the tempo of the game if we can play in transition.”
Coastal Point • JESSE PRYOR
Rayc Rayne and the rest of the Lady Indians go up strong against Delmar.And after coaching at Caesar Rodney for the past 17 years Victory knows that building a program that can compete day-in and day-out won’t be an overnight process.
“Building a program takes time,” Victory said. “But it will come.”
And with six games left in the regular season schedule, Indian River will have ample opportunities to better their current 4-10 record. They’ve already surpassed last year’s win total of one game. But like building a house, they’ll have to do it one brick at a time.
Indian River is set to host Lake Forest tonight at 6 p.m., travel to Seaford on Feb. 6 and then come back home to play Woodbridge on Feb. 8.