Straughn sweeps
Published 12:02 am Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Straughn got out its brooms and swept Pleasant Home out of the gym Tuesday night in regular season action.
The Tigers’ B-team got the night rolling with a 44-10 victory, and the varsity girls picked up right where things left off with a 52-19 win of their own.
Varsity boys beat the Eagles their strong transition game and quickness in a 57-26 rout.
The Lady Tigers will be back in action tomorrow night at home against Enterprise. There will be no boys games. Ninth grade girls tip off tomorrow at 4:30, followed by the varsity girls.
Pleasant Home hosts Opp, while SHS travels to face Excel in its first area contest of the season on Friday night.
Straughn girls 52, Pleasant Home girls 19
Both squads didn’t get off to quick starts and the Lady Tigers took advantage of turnovers in the duration to take a good 20-6 lead after the first period.
“We got off to a good lead on them and it kind of relaxed us,” SHS coach Scott Kinsaul said. “We played real well. Defensively, I can’t complain about our defense.
“The only thing I told them (after the game) in the locker room is that we still don’t convert on turnovers as well as I’d like to,” he said. “We’ve got to start making better decisions on the fast breaks.”
Kinsaul was referring to the many times his Lady Tigers (8-1) would get a turnover, but wouldn’t make easy layups on their end.
Pleasant Home scored its first point of the night with 2:39 left in the first period on the front-end of a pair of free throws.
At the start of the second period, Lady Eagles guard Jade Self hit a 3-pointer and PHS trailed 20-9.
Straughn led 30-12 at halftime and went on to outscore the Lady Eagles 22-7 in the second half.
With four minutes left in the game and with the clock running due to the mercy rule in the fourth, the Lady Tigers’ seconds came in to end the starters’ reign of dominance.
Jacie Williamson led SHS with 13 points, Brittany Driver had 12 points, Katelyn Kinsaul had eight points and Audrey Driver tipped in seven. Sisters Taylor and Emily Wood had five and six points, respectively.
Self led PHS with seven points.
Straughn boys 57, Pleasant Home boys 26
The Tigers (5-0) strutted out to a 9-0 lead with less than four minutes left in the first period and went on to take a 16-2 lead at the end of the first period when Brice Scott hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Pleasant Home stayed with Straughn early in the second period, but the Tigers’ transition game and good defense was too much as SHS led 21-5 with less than five minutes left in the first half thanks to a 3-pointer by J.C. Ray, who finished with seven points.
JD Driver, who led SHS with 16 points, swished two free throws with 13.6 seconds left in the second period to put the Tigers up 34-14 at halftime.
One of the problems PHS had to deal with was that three of its starters were out due to discipline problems, Eagles coach Jerry Davis said.
“Straughn moves the ball well,” Davis said. “Hopefully, we’ll learn from it and get better.”
Driver got a put back and Straughn led 40-16 at one point of the third period.
Going into the fourth, the Tigers were ahead 47-23.
SHS coach Marc Tracy said the team has coped well with playing five games in the past six days.
“I think we’ve done really well,” he said. “Compared to what we’ve had before, this team plays really well together.”
Driver added 11 rebounds and five steals to his total. Hobie Hughes added 10 points. Brice Scott made 13 points. Devin Scott had five rebounds for SHS.