Rebounding woes costly for Lady Oracles
By Todd Swank Contributing sportswriter

The Lady Oracles traveled to Rensselaer for a Saturday afternoon game and came home with a 54-37 loss that dropped their season record to two wins and three losses.

The Oracles were outrebounded by 25 (55-30), many at the offensive end. After giving their opponents that many extra chances to score, the Oracles needed to have a big turnover advantage or shoot extremely well from the field to have a chance at winning. They did neither. They produced 21 turnovers, but had 20 of their own and they only shot 23% (10-43) from the field.

The Oracles again fell behind early. This time they were behind 10-0 before they could get their first score. Chanler Norman had an oldfashion three point play halfway through the first period. Just seconds later Hannah Strasser sank two free throws to cut the lead in half at 10-5. Two more free throws by Strasser and two from Whitney Arion at the end of the opening quarter brought the Oracles to within one at 12-11.

Norman tied the score at 12 early in the second. Delphi had held the Bombers without a field goal for nearly seven minutes before a basket by Allie Mattocks put Rensselaer up to stay. The Lady Oracles would hit their own cold shooting. Lucky for them the defense was playing well and limited the Bombers to that single basket while the Oracles went over four minutes without a basket. Both teams finally started to hit the last three minutes of the half. Delphi trailed 25-21 going into the locker rooms.

Arion hit a trey to open Delphi's scoring in the third. The rebounded disadvantage really began to take its toll in the second half. Delphi's players were getting worn down and steadily fell further behind. They were down by 14 at 38-24 before closing to within ten (38-28) at the three quarter mark.

The fourth period was much like the third with the Bombers pulling away to leads of 13,15 and finally 17 points.

The loss gives the Oracles an 0-1 Hoosier Conference record to go with their overall 2-3 mark.

The JV outscored Rensselaer 34-19 in the second half to claim the win.