The South Pike Eagles won their district opener on Saturday, taking both the boys and girls games against North Pike.
The boys won 95-69 and the girls won 65-44 after the two previous district openers against Jefferson County and Franklin County had to be moved earlier in the week.
The lady Eagle defense came out tough and held North Pike to two points in the first quarter. The tradeoff was that the Eagles also were in foul trouble.
That kept the Jaguars in the game and Kierra Addison out of it. North Pike used it to get back within 10 in the first half, but made just 12-of-30 free throws to let the Eagles off the hook for their aggressiveness.
The Eagles always seemed to have a 3-pointer or a bucket down low to answer with and pulled away for good in the third quarter.
Both sides had a little extra emotion as North Pike’s Olivia Kennedy returned to face her team from last year.
“The girls were kind of fired up for that,” South Pike head coach Marcus Flippin said.
North Pike head coach Lance Golmon added, “it was tough on her. She played with a lot of emotion.”
Kennedy finished with 10 points, including two 3-pointers against her former team. Brittany Patterson added 11 points and eight boards for North Pike.
The Eagles used a balanced attack, especially with Addison in foul trouble.
Tomika Cook and Shannon Bates led the team with 12 and eight points, respectively. Kentoria Harrell scored 10 and Addison added nine. K’Darrylon Gallagher scored eight.
“You always want to get off to a good start,” Flippin said of starting the district schedule with a win. “I’m real happy with them. We got on them early and played well.”
The early deficit was part of a confidence problem for North Pike.
“If I could have asked Flippin to turn their jerseys inside out we might have had a chance,” Golmon said. “We can play with anyone, but we just don’t believe that.”
South Pike 95, North Pike 69
The South Pike boys also got out to an early lead thanks to their hot hands from the outside.
Donerrick Ellzey and Trevosity Ellzey combined to hit eight 3-pointers and Devon Malone added two more in the second half as the Eagles put plenty of points on the board and pushed North Pike into 36 turnovers on Saturday.
Trevosity Ellzey scored 22 points, including five straight 3-pointers. Malone added 21 points and Donerrick Ellzey put in 15 points.
“This was a better effort,” South Pike head coach Joe Taylor said. “Our shots finally started falling.”
In addition to the outside shots, South Pike got to the free throw line and made 13-of-17 free throws after being held to single-digit attempts from the charity stripe in games over the last month.
Some of that came from Malone down low and Trevontee Cook keeping the ball alive with 12 rebounds and six blocks.
North Pike played even with the Eagles in the second quarter but started the third with five turnovers to send South Pike on a 16-2 run.
The Jaguars were led by Jeremick Jordan’s 17 points off the bench. Jacob Morgan scored 13 and Pat Brown added 10, while Spencer Yarbrough also came off the bench for 12 points.
