The Lady Cavaliers only scored two points in the first quarter, and that didn’t come until there were 45 seconds remaining.
Callaway picked it up a little bit in the second quarter, but Troup led 19-12 at the half.
Both teams struggled to put points up and turnovers were rampant, especially in the second half when Callaway’s pressure defense forced turnovers that the Lady Cavaliers turned into points.
In the end, Troup simply ran out of gas and perhaps Callaway coach Deyano Martin’s preseason insistence on conditioning paid off.
“We started off really slow,” Martin said. “I think we had first-game jitters to start out. But the second half we kind of turned it on and kind of loosened up a little bit and started playing. We kind of turned up the defense a little and just started running to the ball, started pressuring the ball and we were able to put some points on the board.”
Martin’s said at the half, his message to his players was to “have fun.”
He told his players “they hadn’t done anything to stop us so let’s go play our style of ball, have fun, enjoy yourself, don’t worry about the outcome, just worry about what is going on right now and take it one play at a time.”
Troup (0-2) was hoping to win its home opener, but it didn’t happen.
“Yeah, we probably had about a hundred turnovers in this game, but give credit to Callaway,” Troup coach Carla Thornton said.
Thornton added that “they put the pressure on us and some of our girls kind of balled up. They acted like they hadn’t seen a press before.”
Thornton said conditioning for her team could be better as the effort seemed to falter late in the fourth quarter.
“We spend so much time working on fundamentals, because I have so many girls new to basketball that we haven’t had a chance to condition like I like, so of course after this game, that’s something we’re going to have to work on more,” she said.
After playing Troup even in the second quarter, Callaway managed to cut the lead to three at 32-29 after three quarters.
Callaway took a 25-24 lead with 2:27 left in the third quarter, but Troup responded to take the lead into the fourth period.
Troup’s momentum didn’t last.
Callaway took its biggest lead of the game at 39-33 midway through the fourth quarter before Troup’s Deaushanique Sanders scored on a fast break layup to trim the lead to 39-37.
The Lady Tigers had a chance to tie things after a Callaway turnover, but a long pass down the floor sailed over the head of Sydni Jackson and the ball turned back over to Callaway with 14 seconds left.
Callaway’s Tenesha Johnson led all scorers with 17 points.
Teammate Monica Jackson had 15 points.
Sanders and Jackson each had 11 points for Troup.
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