Fencor 1989s

Nation's top player scores 22 points; Net Force play well during first half By JAMES D. HORNE 07/23/05 The Leaf-Chronicle Mookie Jackson and the rest of the Clarksville Net Force are happy they got their opening game of pool play in the AAU 15U Girls National Basketball Tournament out of the way. It's just because of the luck of the draw, or lack thereof, that the host-qualifying team had to take on top-seeded Fencor (Pa.), which took a 72-40 victory at the Dunn Center on Thursday. "I think we had a lot of confidence in the beginning of the game," said Jackson, a sophomore Northeast transfer. "As they took off and the score got higher, we hung our heads down and started to give up a little. If we would have kept our heads in the game, I think we could have won." But the Net Force (0-1, Pool A) gained some insight about how to play from here on out. "We learned a lot from the game," Jackson said. "We learned what the team can do and what we can't do. We just have to give it our all. We've got to go out and play hard every game. Now that we've gotten a hard team out of the way, we can pick it up." Jackson and Clarksville High junior Valerie Bronson led the Net Force with 10 points each, followed by Dickson County junior Brittney Stanford with eight points and Todd County (Ky.) Central junior Millie Deason's six. Fencor's (1-0, Pool A) talented sophomore Elena Delle Donne — ranked the nation's top player in her class by USA Today — led all scorers with 22 points. Lindsay Kimmel chipped in 18 points and Christine Matera added nine. And for a while there, the Net Force gave Fencor all they could handle. "Defensively to start, we were flat," Fencor coach Veronica Algeo said. "... To the credit of the Clarksville Net Force, they made us pay. They really executed well. But once we buckled down ... everything else kind of took care of itself." That point came when Fencor blew open a 27-20 game with 4:35 left in the first half, and ended the half on a 15-2 run to take a 42-22 halftime lead. "We came out and played hard the first 14-15 minutes," Net Force and Rossview boys coach Fred Harper said. "We were still in it when it was 27-20. But they went on that run. I thought we missed some bunnies and didn't use the glass on some putbacks. Those might not have made a difference in the outcome, but it would have helped in the spread of the game."