The North Pike Lady Jaguars ended the regular season in less-than-stellar fashion Friday night, falling to host Lawrence County 43-21.
The Lady Cougars gained the upper hand early on. At the end of the first quarter, Lawrence County was ahead with a score of 18-6 and maintained the lead throughout the second quarter.
The Lady Cougars led 25-12 at halftime.
After returning for the third quarter, the Lady Jaguars continued to fight but victory inched further and further away.
With the loss, North Pike dropped to 9-14 on the year.
Head Coach Laura Holman discussed the difficulties her team faced Friday evening.
“Their defense disrupted us offensively tonight and we really couldn’t find anybody who could score,” Holman said. “But they did a great job defensively on us and they did a really good job crashing the boards and that hurt us a lot.”
Holman added that Lawrence County’s strong defense was what helped them gain the lead early in the game.
“We came out the gate a little slow, had some turnovers, and they capitalized and I think we kind of just couldn’t really put enough stopping scores together to fight back in the game,” she said.
Lawrence pulls away
After the girls’ game, the boys took the court for their match. The Jaguars came out with fierce resilience, and even got the lead in the first quarter.
However, the Cougers quickly caught up to overtake them as the game progressed en route to a 57-34 win.
In the first half, the two teams remained relatively close on the scoreboard, but a tough third quarter pushed the Jaguars further behind.
The Jaguars, under the leader ship of Coach Keith Russ, finished the regular season with a 14-10 record.
“We didn’t stop their inside game,” Russ said. “We didn’t stop them off the glass, we didn’t box out well. We just didn’t do a good job in the paint tonight.
“We’ve just got to continue to work hard.”
Christian Leonard led North Pike with 8 points, followed by Jacob Deer and Alijah Martin each with 6 points.
Other scorers were: K.J. Nobles (4), Chris Wells (4), Demario Wells (2), Trey Nobles (2) and Kevin Evans (2).
