NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Princeton Day School girls’ basketball player Hannah Levy dribbles the ball in recent action. Last Thursday, Levy scored four points in a losing cause as the Panthers fell 50-20 to Northern Burlington in the first round of its PDS Girls’ Basketball Holiday Invitational. The Panthers dropped to 4-3 with the defeat and were slated to play Pinelands Regional in the consolation contest of the Invitational before hosting Lawrenceville on January 8.

Hosting Northern Burlington last Thursday in the opening round of its Holiday Invitational, the Princeton Day School girls’ basketball team jumped out to a 4-0 lead halfway through the first quarter.

The visitors, though, reeled off 16 unanswered points to seize control of the contest.

PDS head coach Mika Ryan didn’t like how her players responded to the Greyhound run as they ended up trailing 34-10 by halftime.

“We started turning the ball over and making bad decisions,” said Ryan. “Once we got down, we didn’t fight back.”

In the second half, the Panthers showed a little more fight, getting outscored by only 16-10 on the way to a 50-20 setback.

“I saw a little better response; I was happy with a couple of our freshmen who came in and showed us, hey, I want to play,” said Ryan, whose team dropped to 4-3 with the defeat.

“Devika Kumar played well. She gives us some athleticism. She is basically a new player to the game. Morgan Van Liew surprises me every day at how she is coming along so I am happy with that.”

Overall, Ryan was not happy with most of what she saw from her team against Northern Burlington.

“Our decision-making was poor, our passing was poor,” said Ryan, who got six points from senior Lauren Johnson in the loss with senior Hannah Levy, junior Emily Goldman, and Van Liew each chipping in four points apiece.

“You can’t beat many teams playing the way we played. You certainly can’t compete with a quality team like this.”

In Ryan’s view, her team needs to start putting in more quality work in practice. “I hope that they start to believe me now because I told them what they saw from the bench tonight is what I have been seeing in practice the last three weeks,” said Ryan.

“We don’t compete in practice and we can’t expect to come out there and just turn it on and play in a game.”

With PDS slated to play Pinelands Regional in the consolation contest of the Invitational before hosting Lawrenceville on January 8 in its first action of 2013, Ryan is hoping that the sting of the Northern Burlington loss will drive her team to start turning it on.

“I don’t know how many we are going to have to lose but maybe one day they will say enough, we can’t take this any more,” added Ryan. “Hopefully it will be a wake-up call but I don’t know, time will tell.”