BASKETBALL: Johnston City fights off Lady Falcons

Elverado trimmed an eight-point halftime deficit to three in the third quarter, but their comeback effort ran out of gas from there as Johnston City pulled away for a 43-23 victory on day one of the 2014 Lady Indians Tip-Off Classic in Du Quoin on Tuesday.

Brooke Whittington and Paige Newfarmer each had three-pointers in the third quarter and the Lady Falcons trailed 22-19 with just under four minutes to go in the period.

But from there, Johnston City outscored Elverado 21-4, including a 15-0 run over the next seven minutes.

"(Johnston City's run) was kind of deflating for our girls," said EHS head coach Rasheeda Love. "I think coming back out from halftime we believe it was something we could totally do. We made some adjustments to play a couple of things differently, we got going and then the momentum shifted back against us, and it was kind of hard to dig back out of that."

Turnovers and missed free throws led to the poor finish by the Lady Falcons. Elverado made just one-of-nine from the charity stripe on the night.

"We missed a lot of free throws," said Love. "It's very depressing because this past Sunday we had a free throw shoot-a-thon, a fundraiser that we had, we raised over $1200, and we shot fairly well. We had a couple girls shoot 80%, a couple shoot 75%, 70%, so to come in here and miss the number of free throws that we missed tonight was heartbreaking."

"Especially when the other team is making their free throws. Being out of position is definitely one of the things we have to work on, and rebounding, those were two of the weaknesses that we talked about tonight."

Kylee Bedar had eight points to lead Elverado. Hannah Alstat (4), Whittington (3), Newfarmer (3), Cheyenne Abbadusky (3) and Emma Bigham (2) also scored for EHS.

The Lady Falcons (0-1) will take on tournament host Du Quoin (0-1) on Thursday at 8:30 p.m., then return on Friday to meet Steeleville at 7:00 p.m.