William Tennent struggles in loss to Palisades

WARMINSTER >> With a little less than two minutes remaining in the final game of the William Tennent Holiday Classic, the ball deflected off of Kayla Gibson’s leg and hit Braylin Dougherty in the face rendering her a little bit woozy. The play stood as a microcosm of the night for William Tennent as it fell to Palisades 43-22.

Entering the game, Tennent coach Paul Veltre was cognizant of the skill of Palisades guard Karlee Krchnavi who entered Tuesday night’s game just 21 points shy of the school’s all-time scoring record at over 1,300 points.

“We wanted to do the best we could to limit (Krchnavi) we knew that she was going to score the question was how (much),” Veltre said. “What we focused on was don’t give her any easy ones and try not to put her on the foul line.”

The problem for Tennent was Krchnavi is only the catalyst for a very deep and talented team. The Pirates got other good contributions from guards Alexa Parks, Katie King and Kayla Reed, the trio showing the amount of talent Palisades has.

“They were very strong tonight, they broke down our defense, they got multiple shots in the lane, we could not contain penetration, fundamentally we were just not good tonight,” Veltre said.

For Tennent, it continued to show signs of a young team. The Panthers struggled to move the ball and score against the effective pressure defense of Palisades. Tennent only managed to put up 11 points through the first three quarters of the game.

“They’re pressure just hurt us, especially their full court pressure,” Veltre said. “We just turned the ball over too many times. We gave them way too many chances to score and that’s kind of became our MO this season.”

In a game which it faced a very good opponent, the hope for Tennent is that it takes some valuable learning experience from playing a team the caliber of Palisades. But Veltre doesn’t know what that lesson is yet.

“I don’t know (what we’ll take out of this game). It’s a good question because it is our flaw, Veltre said. “We have a hard time handling this pressure.”