WINONA LAKE — Injuries, coupled with foul trouble, were more than the Lakeland Christian Academy girls basketball team could overcome Monday night at home against Bethany Christian. Already without sophomore Carissa Urschalitz and junior Maryl Gerst because of injuries, the LCA Lady Cougars (2-3) also had sophomore Rachel Sand and senior Julianne Haines sitting on the bench in the opening half with three fouls each against the Bethany Lady Bruins (3-2). With two post players relegated to sitting, LCA couldn’t keep up with Bethany, falling 40-31. “We were already without two people, so we were really short on players,” LCA coach Ty Propp said of his team, which only has a total of 12 girls in the program. “The fouls just made that dynamic spin even faster. And I can’t say the fouls were ticky-tack fouls either. It was just bad play. They moved their feet and just weren’t playing smart ball.” The fouls helped Bethany build a 24-14 halftime lead, but LCA fought back in the third quarter. Following a bucket by Sand, then two free throws by Haines, the Lady Cougars were within 24-18 with 4:22 remaining in the third quarter. Bethany, however, scored four points in the next 22 seconds, igniting a 7-0 run that put the road team in front 31-18 with 3:19 left in the quarter. “We weren’t as effective with our press as I wanted to be,” Propp said. “We got a couple turnovers from it, but they may have scored as many points off it as we had turnovers. There wasn’t a real benefit for us.” The scoring spurt by the Lady Bruins gave them enough cushion that LCA couldn’t overcome, but Propp was pleased with the defense allowing 40 points after last season’s 48-27 loss to Bethany in Waterford Mills. Particularly, Propp liked the defense on Bethany’s 6-foot-2 senior center, Hanna Hochstetler, who had 26 points in last year’s game but was limited to 10 Monday night. “Our defense did great,” he said. “I felt like we played them very solidly, compared to how we played them last year.” With Sand getting into foul trouble, 5-8 senior Hannah Remington was stuck with Hochstetler for much of the night, and she held her own. Along with making things tough for Hochstetler, Remington also had a team-high 11 points and 13 rebounds. “She has this weird sense of timing and she can leap like nothing else,” Propp said of Remington’s rebounding prowess. “Her scrappiness also helps out. I think she can consistently be a better rebounder than her stats have shown. She was really focused tonight.” Also for LCA, Haines had seven points, nine rebounds and six steals. The loss is LCA’s third-straight, but Propp would prefer a close loss over his team’s blowout wins over South Bend Career Academy (53-10) and Howe School (61-4) in its opening two games this season. “We didn’t play strong enough teams to start with,” he said. “I like the fact that we had the possibility of beginning at 3-0, because I thought we could have done better against Churubusco (but lost 54-23). To start with those kind of wins is a good thing, but the downside is we played teams that have to have a varsity team, but aren’t that strong. It was real disjointed. We didn’t press and didn’t get to run anything that would have been aggressive – or I didn’t want to do that. That was the downside to the start. In reality, I’d rather play games like this, where we have good competition and we can work on some things.” LCA faces good competition again on Dec. 6 when it hosts Jimtown, a team Bethany defeated 39-27 on Nov. 12.
