| Twister squads made ill by TOs | | Posted: Friday, November 19, 2010 5:55 pm
| Just two games into the season and ‘turnovers’ has already become an ugly word for Union City’s two basketball teams.
For the second time in as many outings, both the Lady Tornadoes and Tornadoes were haunted by countless floor mistakes in a doubleheader loss to Covington Thursday night.
The UC girls lost 45-35, and the Twister boys were beaten 74-58 by the visiting Chargers.
Union City will play its first road games of the season on Monday, albeit a short trip to Troy to face county-rival Obion Central.
Covington 45, UC 35 (G)
The Lady Tornadoes were plagued by a multitude of unforced turnovers in the middle two periods while dropping the second of their two Hall of Champions games.
After leading 11-10 at the conclusion of one period, UC was outscored 24-13 over the middle two quarters and could never recover.
“We’re struggling in the halfcourt offense,” Lady Twister coach Eddie Suiter said. “Until we can score more, we have to turn our defense into offense. We didn’t do a good job of that in this game with only five points off of turnovers.”
Union City was haunted, too, by missed free throws as it was errant on half of its 14 foul line attempts.
The Lady Twister scoring burden fell onto Kierra Davis and Jackie Hudson, both of whom scored 15 points to account for 30 of UC’s 35 points.
Hudson also topped the rebound chart for UC (1-1) with nine boards, while Davis pulled down seven.
Shenisha Huff — considered the most-versatile of the Lady Tornado players — served the second of a two-game suspension and will return to the lineup on Monday when Union City plays at Obion Central.
Covington 74, UC 58 (B)
The Tornadoes, who turned the ball over 28 times in a season-opening loss to Jackson South Side on Tuesday, were guilty of 33 TOs on 80 possessions Thursday vs. the Chargers.
“It’s not from a lack of effort. Our guys were playing hard and diving on the floor for loose balls with 30 seconds left and us down by 15,” UC head coach Shane Sisco said of his club’s 0-2 start.
Union City actually bolted to a 16-2 first-quarter lead before the Chargers turned up the defensive intensity and roared back for a 33-32 halftime advantage.
The visitors outscored the Twisters 41-26 over the final two frames.
UC, which did improve its free throw shooting (22-of-30) from two nights earlier, struggled again from beyond the 3-point line — hitting but 4-of-19 attempts.
Antonio Cox scored a career-high 27 points, but was the lone Tornado in double figures. | | | | |
