A big third quarter and Rachael Doyle’s keen eye at the free throw line lifted Blanchester to a 46-34 win over West Union Monday night (Jan. 4) in a non-league girls basketball game in the Adams County gym.
Blanchester (8-3) trailed 20-15 at halftime but then outscored West Union 20-4 in the third period.
“In the first half, we could not make a shot and we turned it over a bunch of times,” Blanchester head coach Bennie Carroll said.
Shaking off the holiday rust may have been part of the issue, but whatever it was, it went away in in the third.
The Lady Cats scored the first 15 points of the second half and never looked back.
“We did play a little better defense and when we did turn them over, we attacked the basket and didn’t turn it over. And we actually made some shots,” added Carroll.
The Lady Cats maintained a near double-digit lead the rest of the way, in large part due to the free throw shooting of Doyle.
The Blanchester guard hit all six of her shots from the line in the final period and was 9 for 10 at the line for the game.
“Rachael hitting those foul shots was big,” said Carroll.
The rest of the team was 4 for 19 at the line.
Doyle finished with 15 points while Sarah Burton tossed in 8.
With the non-conference loss, the Lady Dragons dropped to 5-6 on the season.
WUHS 10 10 4 10 —34
BHS 11 4 20 11 —46
WEST UNION (34) (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Baldwin 1-0-1/1-3 Akers 4-0-5/6-13 Rowe 1-0-0-2 Grooms 2-0-1/2-5 Pennington 5-1-0-11. TOTALS 13-1-7/9-34.
BLANCHESTER (46) (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Doyle 3-0-9/10-15 Culberson 1-1-0-3 Doughman 1-0-0/2-2 Burton 3-0-2/4-8 Lindsey 2-2-0-6 E. Gundler 0-0-1/4-1 Miller 2-0-0/3-4 Baldwin 0-0-1/4-1 Dugger 2-2-0/2-6. TOTALS 14-5-13/29-46.
