Defensive adjustment keys St. James girls’ narrow victory over North Myrtle Beach

Three times earlier this year, the North Myrtle Beach girls basketball team failed to score more than 24 points in a game.

So when the Chiefs nearly reached that figure against St. James in the second quarter Monday, it got Sharks coach Stan Patterson’s attention. Despite a 20-point period, his team adjusted and allowed only eight after halftime en route to a 39-37 victory to open the Region VII-AAA schedule.

“You’ve just got to battle through the tough times and persevere,” said Patterson, whose team was outscored 20-5 in the second quarter. “I felt like we kept fighting and fighting and fighting until we took the lead there at the end. That’s going to really help our confidence.”

Bethany Goodrich’s short jumper with 1:13 to go gave St. James its final lead of the night at 38-37. But that was only possible after the Sharks’ defense locked down one of the best players in the area.

Chiefs junior Aquera Johnson, third on the Grand Strand in both scoring and rebounding entering this week, had 16 points prior to halftime. That’s when St. James switched to a 2-3 zone defense and forced North Myrtle Beach out of the uptempo style that prompted the second-quarter run.

“We really tried to focus on keeping Johnson in front of us,” Patterson said. “She was able to side step us going to the basket. She’s not going to miss those.”

Johnson finished with 19 points, three more than her season average, but there wasn’t enough help, especially after the break when all of the Sharks’ pressure was focusing on her.

The Chiefs hit just two second-half field goals and were held to a pair of free throws in the fourth quarter.

“We’re steady looking for that person who’s going to take up that second role of scoring,” Chiefs coach Jude Hunt said. “We’ve had some nights where someone was able to step it up.

“We forced some turnovers in that second quarter and got our energy going. We got our transition going in that quarter. We were doing a pretty good job of stopping them. … We still struggle at times in a half-court set. They dropped back in a zone on us and took that approach.”

In the midst of that defensive spurt, St. James also ended up with two players in double figures.

St. James got 14 points from Kelsi Bachmann – who added a late free throw to complete the scoring – and 12 from Bethany Goodrich. It gave St. James (8-5 overall) a 1-0 start to a Region VII schedule that is likely to include plenty more of these types of games.

“Any time you win, especially the first one in the region, it’s gonna mean something,” Patterson said. “We know we’ve got to go back to work, fix some things.”

This story was originally published January 11, 2016 at 8:11 PM with the headline "Defensive adjustment keys St. James girls’ narrow victory over North Myrtle Beach."