COLUMBIA CITY – They weren’t especially efficient on offense, but the Warsaw Lady Tigers made up for it defensively.
In a 32-22 win at Columbia City Tuesday night, Warsaw was as cold as the winter weather outside, making just 4 of 15 shot attempts in the second half and shooting 36 percent for the game.
What the Lady Tigers had going for them was their defense, which flustered the host Lady Eagles into a 9-of-38 shooting performance.
Columbia City, which led 19-18 at halftime, was just 1 of 19 from the field in the second half and only scored three points in the third and fourth quarters.
Sophomore Carly Mabie scored a bucket in the lane with three seconds left in the third quarter, and classmate Gabby Fry made 1 of 2 free throw attempts with 1:50 remaining in the fourth quarter to account for the Lady Eagles’ second-half offense.
“I’m a man-to-man guy ... I love man-to-man defense,” said Warsaw coach Lenny Krebs, whose team improved to 7-3 the season with the program’s 14th win over Columbia City in the last 16 meetings.
“I just felt like this was one of those games that wasn’t going to be beneficial for us to play man-to-man. The few times we did play man, it wasn’t our best defense. I thought we played (1-2-2) well. We were able to extend out on their shooters and contain penetration better. We knew they were going to try and penetrate deep and kick it out to their shooters.
“When Columbia City went on that little mini-run in the second quarter it was because we allowed penetration and didn’t get their shooters covered. Other than that mini-run, those are the two things we did well tonight, for the most part.”
Warsaw led 11-7 after one quarter of play, and Columbia City, now 2-9 on the season, opened the second stanza with a 4-0 spurt to tie the game.
The Lady Eagles led 19-18 at the break, but were outscored 14-3 over the final 16 minutes.
While Krebs acknowledged the game wasn’t pretty, he was happy to see his team grind out a win – much the way they did in a 48-34 victory over Portage on Dec. 2.
“I thought defensively we played a nice ball game,” said Krebs. “We talked in the locker room that if we’re going to advance in the tournament we’ve got to learn to win ugly, and to win on the defensive end. You very rarely see teams advance in the tournament just because they’re efficient offensively every single night.
“That’s what we’re going to take from this, that we can win ugly, play a physical game, and come out on top.”
Junior Kacy Bragg led Warsaw with 12 points and nine rebounds. She finished the game 4 of 6 from the field and 4 of 4 at the free throw line.
Maddie Ryman, also a junior, was 3 of 4 from the field and 2 of 4 at the charity stripe. She made both three-pointers she attempted en route to 10 points.
The Lady Eagles got seven points and six boards from Fry, while sophomores Grace Schrader and Olivia Shearer chipped in with five points each.
With last weekend’s game at Plymouth postponed until Jan. 3 because of the weather, the Lady Tigers will open Northern Lakes Conference play Saturday. It’s the only NLC?game Warsaw will play before the new year.
In Tuesday’s JV game, the Lady Tigers fell 29-22 to Columbia City.
Kensie Ryman led Warsaw with seven points, while Kendall Wayne tallied five points.
