HSPN Tourney - Pool Round 3

Fairfax Firebirds 52 New Life Storm 40

The New Life Storm lost their third game of the tournament against the Fairfax Firebirds by a score of 52-40. The Firebirds were a senior-dominated team that outsized the Storm at every position on the floor. Once again, NLC faced a physical zone defense that collapsed into the paint, which did a good job surrounding Shelby and denying her good shot opportunities. They also used their size to control the boards. The only points the Storm could manage in the first quarter were two 3-pointers by Emily on out-of-bounds plays, as they fell behind 13-6. The Firebirds stretched it to 26-16 at the half. In the second half, the margin stayed steady in the low double-digits, with the Storm playing hard and getting points from a number of different players, but were not able to generate enough movement to consistently get good shots against the zone and struggled to get stops against the Firebirds. Their best chance came when they cut the lead to 8 with some steals and fast break buckets with about5 minutes to play. Three times in a row they got defensive stops but were not able to convert offensively. Emily led the Storm with 11 points and 5 assists while Shelby pulled down 10 rebounds.