The Arrows scrapped until the end — cutting into double-digit leads more than once — of their 66-48 loss to Lloyd Memorial of Erlanger, Ky., in Monday’s opener at the Beacon Orthopaedics Flyin’ To The Hoop at Fairmont High School’s Trent Arena.
What Turner still doesn’t know is how well his team, led by 2,000-point scorer Mason Shrout, will continue to improve in its quest to return to Trent Arena and play in the Division III regional tournament for the second straight year.
The Arrows (12-1) were off target, shooting 32% from the field, 22% from 3-point range and 68.6% from the free-throw line. And they committed 15 turnovers. Lloyd, led by 6-foot-8 junior four-star E.J. Walker, took the lead in the second quarter and led 33-22 at halftime. Walker scored Lloyd’s first 11 points and finished with 21. The lead remained in double digits in the third quarter.
“It took us out of our game plan and we weren’t able to do what we thought we would,” Turner said. “We had to play a lot faster than we like to. Defensively we had to scramble a lot more than we wanted to. We put ourselves in a bad situation.”
Shrout scored 22 points, but third-leading scorer and leading rebounder Logan Hawley, who at 6-foot-8 was the matchup against Walker, had short day. He had no points or rebounds in 17 minutes, and his time in the second half was limited to a couple of short appearances. Turner decided to go small to create more defensive pressure, space the floor on offense and get another shooter in the game.
“He’s got to be better,” Turner said. “He wasn’t doing a whole lot to help us, and we felt like smaller gave us the best chance to win.”
Turner wants to develop more depth beyond the one or two players he brings off the bench. And he wants his regulars to step up and show more against good teams.
“We’re nowhere close to where we need to be right now, and I hope this is a wake up call for them because I’m not happy with where we’re at,” Turner said. “That’s on me, and I got to figure out how to get us there.”
This was Shawnee’s second straight invitation to Flyin’. Last year the Arrows lost by two points to Oakwood in an anticipated matchup of Shrout and Will Maxwell, now a walk-on freshman at Dayton. That game served to put the Arrows on a trajectory to the regional final.
“It’s a great stage and we’re hoping to be able to play back on this court for the regional semifinals and maybe the regional finals,” Shrout said. “The positive takeaway from this is we get to refocus. We got humbled a little bit, and I think we came in with our heads a little high. You want to come in with some confidence, but I think we came in with a little bit too much.”
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