Solid effort against Bixby falls short for Lady Sandites
/By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief
The Charles Page High School girls' varsity basketball team fell to 1-1 for the season after a couple of strong rallies weren't enough to overcome an early deficit. Junior standout Sydney Pennington led her team both offensively and defensively with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Right behind her was Cierra Scott with 18 points and impressive accuracy, only missing 2 of her 9 shots, and scored 11 points in the third period alone.
#17 Bixby's Addison Richards led both teams with 24 points in the Lady Spartans' 61-51 season-opener at the Whitey Ford Athletic Center Tuesday night.
Last week the #16 Lady Sandites won their season opener in a 59-39 blowout of the Green Country Defenders (home school) at home. Pennington scored a game-high 22 points, aided by Destiny Johnson with 7, Scott with 5, Holly Kersgieter 5, Selena Hitchcock 5, Isabella Regalado 5, Gloria Mutiri 4, Kimi Presnell 3, Lee Leslie 3.
The Spartans were a much tougher opponent, however, and took a 15-12 lead midway through the first period and only briefly gave it up.
Richards started the scoring with a 2pt field goal, but Kersgieter was right behind her with a layup, followed by a field goal from Pennington to take the lead.
It was a back and forth effort from there. Regan Reinholz sank a 3 to tie it at 9, but Scott retaliated with a 3 of her own, then it was Dariann Myles who tied things up. Richards dropped the game-changing field goal and the Lady Spartans pulled ahead to a 20-14 lead to end the first period.
Pennington went 2-2 on free throws and Kersgieter and Hitchcock sank a few goals to narrow the gap to 22-20, then Hitchcock tied it up at 23 before a Reinholz layup took the lead back.
Already trailing 32-26, the Sandites were put further in the hole by a last-second near-half-court 3-pointer from Myles to end the third that even she was shocked she made. Despite outscoring the Spartans 17-15 in the third, our girls were too far behind to make a comeback in the low-scoring fourth period and Richards iced the cake with the last goal of the game.
JV
The JV girls were back and forth for most of their game before pulling ahead to a 26-18 win in their first game of the season. Amari Grant led the team with two 3-pointers and one 2-pointer.
