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Sports |
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South Point defeat LHS girls, boys TERRANCE THOMAS, LTN Staff Writer Dec. 17 - BELMONT — You can bet the Lincolnton varsity girls and boys coaches are going to have their teams working on moving the ball down court against defensive pressure this week in practice. South Point was all about putting on defensive pressure Friday against the Lincolnton teams. The Lady Raiders use it to defeat the Lady Wolves 56-44 and the Raiders did the same in the nightcap to take a 62-48. In the girls game, South Point led 15-8 at the end of the first quarter, but made its move right before the half. The Lady Raiders were up 29-21 and hit a 3-pointer, a basket and a free throw, for six points. They followed that by opened the third quarter with a basket. It didn’t seem like much but it was an 8-0 run that made it a 16-point ball game. The rest of the way it was back and forth but the Lady Wolves couldn’t make up the difference despite an 17-point, 8-rebound effort from Lauren Bartholomew. The full-court press forced the Lady Wolves to rush their offense and make turnovers. “We need to step up our offense more,” said Andrea Smith. “Our defense (did well). We went after the ball more aggressively than before.” Teammate Andrea Stroup agreed. “Our defense has improved,” she said. “We hustled more. “We are a young team,” she continued. “It’s going to take some experience and time together. The freshmen and sophomores are beginning to step up.” LHS boys fall The Lincolnton boys were taking South Point’s best blows, then the bottom fell out in the third quarter. Thanks to South Point’s defense and a momentary shooting drought, the Wolves hit just one basket and scored only five points in the third. Meanwhile, the Raiders turned it on. They got good looks and made the shots At one point, they had six straight buckets that were either a 3-pointer or a three-point play the hard way (a basket and a made free throw). When the third frame was over, The Raiders had outscored the Wolves 28-5. Despite trailing by 25 points going into the fourth quarter, the Wolves didn’t give up. They turned it on and pulled off a 15-4 run to make it close. In the end, it wasn’t a bad effort for a team that only had four practices. “It was a lot what I expected,” said Lincolnton coach Bob Cowie, “In the end, we were not physically and mentally ready and in basketball shape. We’re no way near what we can be. “There were some positive signs,” Cowie said. “We will eventually become a good basketball team. They all played well in spurts. We didn’t quit. We could’ve easily quit.” This team wasn’t about to quit. “We didn’t give up,” said Eric Wilson. “In the third quarter we just ran out of energy and we let the game get out of hand. But in the fourth, we decided to come out hard and make the game respectable. We can’t give up. We’ve got to stick together and keep fighting.” “We tried to put our heart into it,” said Jeremy Degree who had 10 points. We had four days of practice. They had four weeks.” Darren Wilson poured in 16 while Junior Smith had 14 including eight in the fourth quarter. |
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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