ATTICA — Poor shooting has plagued the Bucyrus Lady Red all season.

It was the main culprit again in Saturday’s loss at Seneca East.

Bucyrus hit just 23 percent of its shots from the field and went one of 13 from 3-point range.

The Tigers took advantage, making up for their lack of accuracy with volume. The result was a 42-28 Northern 10 Athletic Conference win.

“I thought the girls stepped up and did as well as they could have done defensively,” Bucyrus coach Brian Seybert said. “It’s just not clicking for us offensively. We’re not making enough shots. We’re getting shots. We’re just not making enough.”

While Seneca East (9-4, 6-2) steadily built a double-digit lead in the second quarter, Bucyrus (0-13, 0-9) employed a triangle-and-two defense that kept the Tigers from building on their advantage.

The Lady Red defense allowed Seneca East to shoot 3-point shots in volume. The strategy worked when the Tigers hit just three of 33 attempts from beyond the arc.

“That’s the worst we’ve shot in a long time,” Seneca East coach George Parks said. “At one point, they were packing it in taking away what we wanted to do. I knew we were getting them on the boards, so I told the girls to shoot more 3s and get the offensive rebound and it worked there for a little bit.”

Seneca East held a commanding 49-30 edge on the glass, 22-7 on the offensive end, leading to a 58-40 differential in shot attempts. Seybert was willing to concede the boards in exchange for slowing down the Tigers’ inside game.

“Defensively, we executed exactly what we came in to try to do,” Seybert said. “Izzy Stockmaster and Alexa Snay are two of the best in the league. We made them really, really work for their 10 and 11 points, respectively.”

Stockmaster came in leading the league with a 16.0 ppg average and Snay was third at 14.8. Seybert gambled that the rebound imbalance wouldn’t make the difference.

“What we were doing (in the triangle-and-two defense), that’s going to happen. It’s going to be that way,” he said. “If they get more shots, we’re just trying to make it a little bit more chaotic at that point.”

Foul trouble also slowed the Tigers’ offense in the second quarter, but defensively they kept the Lady Red at bay.

“We had some girls that don’t play much varsity step up big time in the second quarter,” Parks said. “We had three starters (Cami Lantz, Karli Foos, and Luella Burkholder) with two fouls early. Those three (subs) — Paige Miller, Val Bordner, and Addy Dawson — came in and gave us good minutes defensively, didn’t turn the ball over, and we were able to survive until halftime.”

Seneca East had a 23-13 lead at intermission. But the lead did not grow decisively until late. Bucyrus was still within 36-25 with 5:10 left in the game following a pair of free throws by Marissa Middleton.

The Tigers’ biggest lead, 42-25, came on a basket by Foos with 1:43 to go.

Middleton danced around foul trouble after picking up her third and fourth fouls on successive possessions. The senior point guard was forced to sit for the last 1:32 of the third and part of the early fourth.

“She’s overly aggressive, which is good. That’s just her trait,” Seybert said. “Most times, it works in her favor, but today, it hurt a little bit. We’ve got to have her on the floor. She’s our engine.”

Middleton led the Lady Red with 11 points and seven rebounds. Lilyan Butchko and Savannah Clark had six points each. Absent from the Bucyrus offense was the 3. Reese Garvin had the lone make from distance of the 13 attempts by the Lady Red.

“The first time we played them, they hit 10 threes,” Parks said. “They hit more threes than twos. I told the girls we’re going to span out. We’re not going to give them any 3-point shots.”

Snay led the Tigers with her 11 points and had a monster day on the boards with 15 rebounds. Stockmaster was next with 10 points and Foos added nine. Seneca East survived 15 of 58 shooting for 26 percent.

“Bucyrus scrapped. They had a good game plan,” Parks said. “If we would have hit a couple of shots early, we could have got them out of that (zone) pretty quick. Unfortunately, we just didn’t hit the shots. We let them hang around.”

“Aside from a few forced passes here and there and a few little calls, we just didn’t take advantage of some things,” Seybert said. “We were creating turnovers. We just weren’t getting buckets off the turnovers.

“Our points off turnovers haven’t been high all year,” he added. “And our fast break points haven’t been high all year and those are two categories that also hurt us.”

Seneca East also won the junior varsity game, 37-20. Paige Miller and Lilly Burkholder led the Tigers with seven points each. Macie Hubble, Addy Weber, and Madison Tyrrell had four apiece for Bucyrus.

Box score

Bucyrus            8       5       8      7 — 28

Seneca East     14       9    11      8 — 42

Bucyrus (0-13, 0-9 N10): Shots 9-40; 3-pt. shots 1-13 (Reese Garvin); Free throws 9-15; Rebounds 30 (Marissa Middleton 7); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Aubrie Kimmel 0 1 1, Reese Garvin 1 0 3, Marissa Middleton 4 3 11, Lilyan Butchko 2 2 6, Malina Rowland 0 1 1, Savannah Clark 2 2 6.

Seneca East (9-4, 6-2 N10): Shots 15-58; 3-pt. shots 3-33 (Cami Lantz, Alexa Snay, Madi Smith); Free throws 9-13; Rebounds 49 (Alexa Snay 15); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Cami Lantz 2 0 5, Jordyn Enders 1 0 2, Alexa Snay 4 2 11, Madi Smtih 1 3 5, Karli Foos 4 0 9, Izzy Stockmaster 3 4 10.

JV: Seneca East 37-20.