Tuesday night on the Holy Hardwood saw a pair of key Second District matchups go down, as McCracken County and St. Mary closed out their season series.
Lady Mustangs 61, Lady Vikings 29
The opening matchup of the night saw the Lady Mustangs bounce back into the win column, sweeping their season series over the Lady Vikings with an emphatic 61-29 win.
“This is the biggest week of our season right here, district games against St. Mary and Paducah Tilghman. We saw some things in losses against Marshall and Calloway that we did well that carried over to tonight,” McCracken County head coach Scott Sivills said. “It was a nice win for us. Offensively, we shot the ball well, while defensively we did a good job of forcing turnovers and turning those into points.”
A pair of strong shooting performances powered the Lady Mustang offense on the night; freshman Ava Hughes finished her night with 21 points, while Ashley Word knocked down five 3-pointers in a 19 point performance.
Mason Clements led the scoring for the Lady Vikings with 13 points, followed by Katie O’Neill with six. Caroline Crider and Kynlee Brummett played a role for the Lady Vikings as well, picking up four points apiece.
The Lady Mustangs would open the scoring in just seconds, sneaking a pass in to Arri Brison behind the St. Mary defense for an easy first bucket. The hot start would continue for the visitors from there, as they rattled off seven points inside the opening minute. With heavy defensive pressure from McCracken forcing a number of turnovers near half court, the opening run from the Lady Mustangs extended to 17 unanswered, before the Lady Vikings broke the drought from the foul line. While a handful of shooting fouls allowed St. Mary to pull back six straight points of their own, McCracken would still hold a healthy lead after one, up 22-8.
“That’s called confidence, when you’re making early shots, seeing those go down, that built a lot of confidence in not just the one player, but all of them,” Sivills said on the Lady Mustangs hot start. “It was good to get out to that quick start with a 17-0 run.”
The Lady Mustangs would continue to dictate the pace throughout the third, as Word re-opened the scoring from three shortly into the quarter. Still stifling St. Mary’s offense with an aggressive press, McCracken surrendered just six points across the quarter, extending their lead past 20 points to take a 39-14 advantage out of the first half.
The Lady Mustangs’ first half success carried over into the third, pushing their lead up to 30 with an early 7-3 run. Word provided a spark from three-point range across the quarter, knocking down three from the perimeter as part of an 11-point third. Again holding the Lady Vikings to just six points on the quarter, McCracken headed into the final eight with a 56-20 edge.
With a ton of work to do, Mason Clements got busy for the Lady Vikings in the fourth, knocking down a trio of threes as time continued to tick away. However, Clement’s’ efforts from the outside was simply too little, too late, as the Mustangs cruised through the fourth towards a 61-29 final.
“We shot the ball very well tonight, Ava [Hughes] and Ashley [Word] had great nights. When you’ve got both of your guards putting up 21 and 19 points, that’s pretty big,” Sivills continued. “The whole team put together four complete quarters tonight, in my opinion, so I’m very happy with the way we played...We’ve got to keep this going, come into practice over the next couple of days, work on a few things, and get ready for a showdown with Tilghman on Friday.”
The Lady Mustangs will head into Friday looking for a measure of revenge, aiming to get their win back following a loss to Tilghman earlier this month. Tip-off between the Lady Mustangs and Lady Tornado from Otis Dining Gymnasium is set for 6 p.m. on Friday night.