The McCracken County Lady Mustangs bounced back in a big way on Friday night, as a complete effort at both ends of the floor powered them to a crucial district win on their rival’s floor, taking down Paducah Tilghman 67-20.
“We took care of our business early in the game, made some great plays, and I’m super proud of our girls, they played really well across all four quarters,” McCracken County head coach Scott Sivills said. “This is a tough place to play, so it’s big for us to be able to come get the win on the road in a big district game, and take full control of the district going forward.”
Across the first half, it was all McCracken County, as they wasted little time taking control of the action and jumping out to an early lead.
Straight away in the first quarter, the Lady Mustangs would take care of their offense glass, with Reagan Hill, Janaye Reed and Abby Casebier creating second chance opportunities with plenty of offensive rebounds. If the points were coming down low, Mason Clements provided a solid option along the outside, sinking three first half three-point shots, helping the Lady Mustangs along to a 10-0 opening run.
“Taking care of the glass was super important for us, and I thought we did a good job of it all night long,” said Sivills, on the Lady Mustangs’ work down low “We were really strong on the offensive boards, and did a good job of attacking that and getting the easy layups out of it.”
While Myiesha Smith would put Tilghman on the board with a three midway through the first quarter, McCracken’s defense would come up big as their lead continued to grow. Holding Tilghman’s top scorers in Smith and Hailyn Hughes to just five points in the first half, the Mustangs would lead by double digits through one quarter, extending it past 20 by halftime as they took a 36-15 lead with them to the locker room.
To open up the second half, the Lady Mustangs came back out with a purpose, turning up the heat with an aggressive full-court press. Keeping Tilghman pinned in deep along their own baseline, McCracken forced turnover after turnover, hanging 19 unanswered points by the midway mark of the third.
“One thing we always want to do defensively is create some chaos with our pressure,” said Sivills, on the Lady Mustangs’ press. “I thought our press really caused some problems for them, created a lot of steals and a lot of baskets. Turning that tempo up really got us going.”
After holding the Lady Tornado to a scoreless third quarter, and extending the lead to 60-15, the only thing left for McCracken was to bleed to clock dry. Outscoring the Tornado 7-5 through the final frame, the Lady Mustangs would collect another key district win, 67-20.
In total, the night would prove to be a balanced scoring effort from the Lady Mustangs, with four reaching double figures, and 10 different players registering points. Seven first quarter points for Casebier would see her top the scoresheet with 12 points, closely followed up by Clements with 11, while Reed and LeZharia Bolen each had 10.
“That’s exactly what I want to see from the offense,” said Sivills, on the Lady Mustangs’ spread out scoring. “We’d been missing a few too many layups over the past couple of games, so we’ve been focusing in practice on just making those easy shots, and tonight we made them. We still have work to do, but I’m proud of the girls for the hard work tonight.
For Tilghman, Smith would lead the way with seven, while Parice Cowherd had six.
The Lady Mustangs are right back to action Saturday afternoon, heading out on the road to take on Bowling Green. Meanwhile, the Lady Tornado will shoot to get back into the win column on Tuesday against Trigg County.
“We want to keep our momentum rolling, we want to continue improving at both ends of the floor, and we’re doing that right now,” Sivills concluded. “We’ve got some really tough games coming up in the next week, it’s very important for us to keep it going.”