With young roster, Penn Hills girls working on paying attention to detail
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Saturday, January 11, 2025 | 11:01 AM
Penn Hills sophomore guard/forward Saniyah Horsley attempts to shoot over Plum’s Caydence Morgan during a Section 1-5A game Jan. 7 at Penn Hills High School. The Mustangs won 39-29.
Penn Hills junior guard Milani Oliver takes the ball to the basket Jan. 7 against Plum. Oliver finished with 13 points, but the Indians lost 39-29.
Penn Hills senior forward Cara Crawford attempts to maneuver around Plum’s Serena Carnahan on Jan. 7 at Penn Hills High School. Crawford scored 12 points, but the Mustangs won 39-29.
Penn Hills freshman guard Jayah Golden fires a pass into the low post during the Indians’ 39-29 loss to Plum on Jan. 7.
Robert Cash has been through this before with the Penn Hills girls basketball program. The Indians have a young group that needs to play as underclassmen because Penn Hills doesn’t have many older players on the roster.
That has led to growing pains for the Indians. Penn Hills suffered its fifth consecutive loss Jan. 7 when the Indians lost 39-29 to Plum in Section 1-5A play.
“We just have to go back tomorrow and preach confidence and continue to work on building their skills and fundamentals, but also uplift those kids and tell them they can do it and will do it,” Cash said. “They are going to be good at some point. We, as coaches, have to keep building up their confidence.”
But Cash also would like to see Penn Hills (1-9, 1-3) capitalize better on opportunities. Too often, Cash feels, the Indians missing easy shots in the paint comes back to haunt the team later.
The Indians missed five layups during the first quarter against Plum.
“With girls basketball, it comes down to making layups, making free throws and rebounding the ball,” Cash said.”We’re really struggling at rebounding and making layups. There’s a couple games where I thought the game would have been out of reach if we just made a few layups in the first quarter and then got teams to chase us. We’re allowing teams to stay in the game by missing layups.”
Penn Hills (1-9, 1-3) has scored 32 or fewer points in four of its past five games. During that stretch, the Indians suffered a one-point loss to West Allegheny and a two-point loss to Knoch.
Penn Hills was held to a season-low 10 points in a Jan. 3 loss to Shaler.
Cash has had young teams before. He wants to try to make some changes to get the Indians to improve on the fundamentals.
“As much as you work on and practice and you do things to try and change that during practice, you can’t simulate the game,” Cash said. “We have to go back, regroup and focus on the little things. The little details. I have so many young kids, and getting them to pay attention to detail has been really rough.”
Against Plum, the Indians built a 9-7 lead at the end of the first quarter despite their misses. Cara Crawford scored seven of her 12 points in the opening frame. The Mustangs stole the momentum back with excellent 3-point shooting.
Plum ended the first quarter with a trey at the buzzer from Riley Stephans. Stephans finished with six 3-pointers and scored a game-high 23 points.
Penn Hills trailed 18-15 at halftime. The Mustangs stretched the lead to 11 points at the end of the third quarter.
Penn Hills got the lead within six, 35-29, following a 3-pointer from Milani Oliver with three minutes remaining. However, the Indians’ offense couldn’t string together any more baskets.
Oliver finished with a team-high 13 points for Penn Hills.
Tags: Penn Hills
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