Templeton High School varsity girls basketball player Carly O’Sullivan dribbles the ball during her team’s loss to Morro Bay on Feb. 2, 53-12. Also pictured, Eagle Katie Hunter goes for the net.

The last time the Templeton High School girls basketball team played the Morro Bay Pirates at the start of the season in a first league game on Jan. 13, the Pirates came away with a 53-12 win.

During their second and final league game for the season on Feb. 3, the Eagles showed marked improvement in the few short weeks since. While it was still a 45-31 loss for the Eagles, their improvement on the court was hard to ignore.

"Templeton came out to play tonight," said Morro Bay coach Cary Nerelli. "They had a good game plan, they came out fired up, they played loose and they played with confidence and it was a great game."

At the end of the first half, the Eagles trailed the Pirates by just a point, 9-8.

"We had our starters in, then we got in foul trouble the end first quarter, so we had to pull two starters out and that really affected our rebounding, and we couldn't get the offensive rebounds we needed," said first year Templeton coach Shawn Koehler.

Templeton's Katie Koehler got things rolling for her team with the first two points of the game. Pirate Nickie Bloom answered with the first two for her team, 2-2.

The Pirates pulled ahead with a point from the line, but the Eagles reclaimed the lead when Molly Wren-Holmes passed to Jeanine Madson for two points at the basket, 4-3.

The Pirates pulled ahead 7-4, but the Eagles tied the game at 8-8 with two points from Jeanine Madson and Carly O'Sullivan.

The Pirates took the one point lead with 0.9 seconds left on the clock when Ciara Ramos went 1-for-2 from the line, 9-8.

The Pirates turned the tide in the second half, and by the end of the quarter held a 31-17 lead over the Eagles.

After trailing by 35-17 to start the third quarter...



For the complete article see the 02-05-2010 issue.

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