PERRY TOWNSHIP – The Perry girls’ basketball team started four freshmen and a sophomore versus the three seniors, a junior, and a sophomore that Delphos Jefferson started Wednesday night at Leonard Volbert Gymnasium.
The Commodores were simply unable to overcome the disparity in experience and they fell to the Wildcats by a final score of 62-34.
Perry, which fell to 0-5 with the loss, couldn’t afford to make many mistakes but had early turnover problems and fell behind quickly 18-2 and trailed 20-4 after one quarter of action.
The Wildcats got big quarters from senior guard Macy Wallace who scored 10 first quarter points while sophomore Ayron McClurg added eight points for Delphos.
But credit to the Commodores who fought back from the big early deficit to claw their way back as they were only outscored 13-11 in the second stanza and trailed 33-15 at the half-time break.
Perry sophomore Tia Barfield tried to keep the Commodores in the contest as she scored 13 of the 15 first half Perry points. Barfield would finish the night with a game-high 26 point effort.
“I think we are getting better every week; our practices have been good and we can be competitive down the road.” Perry coach Ted Patton said. “Barfield makes everyone around her better and it is a positive for us when we can keep her on the floor.”
Jefferson squelched any hopes of a Perry comeback when they outscored the Commodores 18-5 in the third quarter to take a 51-20 lead to the final period of play.
With mostly substitutes on the floor for the final eight minutes, Perry enjoyed a 14-11 scoring edger to account for the final score.
The Wildcats (6-2) had 11 different players break into the scoring column, led by Wallace with 17 points while McClurg finished the game with 14 for Delphos.
“We got a lot of young kids a chance to play tonight and I got to look at, and evaluate, some people tonight.” Jefferson coach Dave Hoffman said. “Wallace and McClurg have both been playing well and they got us off to a good start tonight.”
Perry struggled shooting the ball as they finished at 34 percent on 14 of 41 from the field. The Wildcats connected on 42 percent as they hit on 26 of 61 from the field.
Perry finished with 27 turnovers while Jefferson committed 20 miscues in the game. Delphos doubled up on Perry in the rebounding department by a 36-18 margin.
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