Bruisers Overcome Halftime Deficit To Win Over Baylor, 39-29

The shoe was on the other foot for the GPS Bruisers Thursday night.

It was just two weeks ago that these two teams squared off at GPS with Baylor winning by three points, despite missing 18 of 25 free throws.  Coach John Gibson credited an outstanding defensive effort for being the biggest reason that Baylor won.

These same two met against Baylor's Jimmy Duke Arena/Austin Clark Court on Thursday and the visiting Bruisers found a way to win, taking over in the second half for a 39-29 victory.
 

These two teams aren't very good this year as evidenced by both having losing records.  But that has never limited an all-out effort on both sides when they meet on the basketball court.  Both teams made more than their share of mistakes with ill-advised passes, silly, unforced turnovers and inopportune shots, but when it got right down to it, it was GPS that made the fewer mistakes and found a way to win.

The Bruisers are now 6-10 overall and 1-3 in region play while Baylor is now 8-14 overall and also 1-3 in region play.

GPS coach Janna Eichelberger was the picture of disappointment two weeks ago when her Bruisers did everything in their power except win the basketball game.  She was feeling somewhat better following this latest skirmish.

"You know when you face Baylor that they will play extremely hard as they are a well-coached bunch, but we were able to gut it out tonight," she began.

"If we don't press, we don''t win, but we fought our hearts out for the whole 32 minutes and were able to maintain that defensive pressure the whole time.  I couldn't be any more proud of our entire team effort tonight," she added.

Freshman Xahara Willis was a difference maker in the first game two weeks ago when she scored 20 points, but she didn't play a single minute in Thursday's game.  Baylor's Gibson was quick to address that issue.

"Let's just say she wasn't available tonight and leave it at that," he said outside the Baylor dressing room.

"We didn't shoot the ball very well tonight and had a lot of turnovers in the second half that really hurt.  I thought we played hard, but we've just got to be better.  GPS was more physical than we were as they were moving us everywhere, but they did a better job of settling down in the second half than we did," he added.

Paige Thompson and Rory Oleksik both sank 3s to give Baylor an early 6-0 lead before the Bruisers answered with five straight points.  Another 3 from Thompson with 1:17 to play gave Baylor a 9-5 lead when the first quarter ended.

Alexys Brown scored on a layup and Amiya Leach a 3 from the key as Baylor had their biggest lead at 14-7 with 3:50 left before halftime before a 3 from Sophia O'Keefe sank a 3 from the wing to trim the difference to four at intermission.

The third quarter belonged to GPS as they took charge by scoring 11 of the first 13 points, taking the lead for the first and last time when a 3 from Ja'Liyah Gee with 5:50 remaining put the Bruisers up 17-14.

Eight straight points from O'Keefe extended the GPS advantage to nine at 25-16 before Lilly Catalanotto swished a 3 just ahead of the horn to make it 25-19 with eight minutes to play.

Farah House hit back-to-back layups to start the fourth as the GPS lead stretched to 29-19, but those were the last two field goals for the Bruisers as they sank 10 of 16 free throws in the final 3:48 to prevent a Baylor comeback.

Thompson made another 3 with 5:08 to play to make it 29-22, but it never got any closer as the Bruisers made that lead stand.

House was tops for GPS with 14 points while O'Keefe was also in double figures with 13.

Thompson was tops for Baylor with nine points while Oleksik and Leach both finished with six.

The Bruisers also had an unofficial 29-26 advantage on the boards as Addi Smith led GPS with eight rebounds.  Ariana Ivery and House both snagged five.  Brown was tops for Baylor with eight while Oleksik had five.

GIRLS PREPARATORY SCHOOL  5  5  15  14  --  39

BAYLOR  9  5  5  10  --  29

GPS (39) – Choate 2, Ivery, Sophia O'Keefe 13, Lawrence 4, Gee 6, Smith, Wilson, Farah House 14.

BAYLOR (29) – Oleksik 6, Thompson 9, Emendorfer, Brown 2, DeMatteo, Curtis, Leach 6, McDonald 2, Catalanotto 4.

3-POINT GOALS: GPS 5 (O'Keefe 3, Gee 2); Baylor 7 (Thompson 3, Oleksik 2, Leach, Catalanotto).

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)
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Middle School Update: JV lost 16-14 and Varsity wins 40-23

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