BUCYRUS — Bucyrus coach Brian Seybert has seen this movie before.

His Lady Redmen suffered through yet another shooting nightmare in dropping a 48-36 non-league game to Cardington at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium.

Bucyrus (3-4) hit just 14 of 51 shots from the field — two of 14 from 3-point range — and six of 18 from the free throw line. It’s something the coach has referred to as a recipe for disaster.

“It’s been a continuous thing for the last four games,” Seybert said. “It continued again tonight. Defense wise, the effort was there. Again, we’re getting good looks. The ball’s just not going through the ring.”

Despite that, the Redmen hung around through most of the first half. They took their last lead of the night — 21-20 — with 1:34 of the second quarter on a 3 by Maddie Kimmel. But then the pivotal segment of the game began.

The Pirates scored the last eight points for the period to take a 28-21 lead to the locker room at halftime. Then, after Bucyrus scored the first bucket of the second half to get back to 28-23, Cardington (4-2) went on another 8-0 run to get the lead to 36-23.

“I think we scored the last six (actually eight) points of the half,” Cardington coach Kevin Fitzpatrick said. “We had a couple big steals and a couple easy baskets. We worked our offense and got a nice easy layup. That was huge. It gave us a seven-point lead going into halftime.

“I think we had a lot of momentum,” he continued. “We came out and didn’t keep the momentum because we gave up an easy shot and they scored. But we recovered. I’m really proud of our kids.”

The key player offensively was Pirate sophomore Abigail Hardwick, who finished with a game-high 18 points, nine in each half.

“She’s a tough matchup,” Seybert acknowledged. “And they had the tall girls (Genevieve Longsdorf and Lydia Hess) that I thought we played pretty well with.”

Hardwick, though a sophomore, lettered as a freshman and has significant basketball experience, according to the coach.

“She has a lot of basketball under her belt,” Fitzpatrick said. “She plays in the offseason with our AAU squad. There’s some really good teams all over the place. She’s stepped up as our leader. For a sophomore to be able to go out there and get kids where they’re supposed to be and telling them, ‘They’re in man or they’re in zone,’ she does a great job of that.”

On defense, the Cardington limited the Redmen perimeter shooters. Brook Dennison finished with seven points and Addison Kemery had four. Marissa Middleton also had seven to share scoring honors for Bucyrus and added nine rebounds.

Hess seconded Hardwick with eight points for the Pirates. Longsdorf grabbed eight rebounds.

“A continuing theme in the four losses is we go into a lull, teams go on 10-plus points run on us, and we’re not making shots,” Seybert said. “It’s tough to win games that way.”

Bucyrus was able to cut the deficit to eight on a basket by Kimmel with 2:03 left in the game, but Cardington closed it out from the line.

“We’ve got one kid who’s played a lot of varsity basketball and that’s Abby,” “We’re learning on the fly. (The rest) have played six games now. I’m probably the only coach in Ohio that has four seniors that had zero varsity experience (to start the year).”

“Credit Cardington. They played a tremendous game,” Seybert said. “They’re well-coached and I thought they did a real good job.

“Our girls battled to the end,” he added. “They gave everything they had. We had a couple of girls sick tonight. They weren’t 100 percent.”

Cardington also won the junior varsity game, 37-23. Magi Hallabrin had nine points to lead the pirated and Kinstin Henthorn added eight. Bell Bruss had a game-high 14 points for Bucyrus and Kimmy Burling finished with seven.

Box scores

Cardington      14       14         8       12— 48

Bucyrus            11       10         7         8 — 36

Cardington (4-2): Shots 19-37 3-pt. shots 2-7 (Madison Linkous, Kristin Henthorn); Free throws 8-12; Rebounds 35 (Genevieve Longsdorf 8); Turnovers 18. Scoring: Madison Caulkins 2 0 4, Madison Linkous 1 1 4, Genevieve Longsdorf 1 0 2, Lydia Hess 4 0 8, Kaliann Hardy 2 1 5, Abigail Hardwick 6 6 18, Kristin Henthorn 2 0 5, Samantha Spires 1 0 2.

Bucyrus (3-4): Shots 14-51; 3-pt. shots 2-14 (Brook Dennison, Maddie Kimmel); Free throws 6-18; Rebounds 32 (Marissa Middleton 9); Turnovers 9. Scoring: Addison Ricker 2 0 4, Maddie Kimmel 2 1 6, Kendra Blizzard 0 2 2, Brook Dennison 3 0 7, Ady Rister 2 3 6, Addison Kemery 2 0 4, Marissa Middleton 3 1 7.

JV: Cardington 37-23.