WHITEHALL — Whitehall's offensive struggles continued Tuesday afternoon against Fruitport, as the Vikings missed too many chances from close to the basket to be victorious. The Trojans pulled away in the second half to secure a 45-33 win.
The Vikings, as they've often been good at doing, dragged Fruitport into a defensive slugfest early on. Unfortunately, they got hit with some bad news quickly when Clare Westerlund, the team's biggest scoring threat, collected a pair of fouls in under a minute in the first quarter and had to check out with 4:10 still to go. She later picked up a third foul in the second, leaving Whitehall without its focal point on offense most of the half.
"That really took us out of what we wanted to do," Whitehall coach Brian Milliron said. "She played significantly less minutes (today) than she generally does. We've got to find a way to score (when we're) without her. We scored 33 points tonight, and she had 12 of them. We've got to get scoring output from somebody else."
Two main reasons Whitehall (2-3) struggled to score were missed layups - not having Westerlund for much of the first half didn't help there - and live-ball turnovers. Fruitport came at the Vikings aggressively on defense, and Whitehall at times did not react quickly enough. Milliron said the team has a habit of trying to "dribble too much" amid defensive pressure, which gets them into difficult situations. A couple of early steals led to Trojan baskets, as well as Westerlund fouls, and gave Fruitport a 13-6 lead to end the first quarter.
The Vikings worked their way back early in the second. Peyton Schultz knocked down a three-pointer after a Whitehall offensive rebound, and Westerlund scored a pair of baskets to get the deficit down to two, 15-13. However, Fruitport ended the quarter on a 7-2 run, then opened the third on an 8-2 run. Suddenly it was 30-17, and the Vikings were unable to seriously threaten after that.
Milliron estimated his team missed more than half of the layups it attempted, a frustrating problem to have for a Viking team that can't afford to miss scoring opportunities.
"I think the girls played okay tonight, except when you miss layups, and then you get frustrated, that's a problem," Milliron said. "We just have to have a goldfish mentality of, 'We missed that one, but we're going to make the next one. We're going to forget about the one we missed.'"
Schultz' treys - she had two of them - showed sparks of the kind of complementary offense Whitehall needs to get from its backcourt. The sophomore has worked on her shot a lot since last season, and it's work that's paid dividends. While she is also the primary ballhandler and therefore doesn't often get opportunities for open shots, it's clear she's capable of delivering that kind of production.
"She is a sophomore scoring point guard, and she has to be if we're going to be successful, so I'm glad she took those shots tonight," Milliron said. "Our shot selection as a whole was actually pretty good. We just didn't shoot enough of them. When you're two feet from the basket and you're shooting about 50 percent from there, you're not going to win too many games."
Despite foul trouble, Westerlund's 12 points led the Vikings, and Schultz added 10. Izabel Hanson-Wilbur led all scorers with 14, one of three Trojans in double figures.
