By Mark Carpenter-
A tale of two halves. That’s what basketball fans who gathered in Seaman last Thursday night witnessed as the North Adams Lady Devils hosted the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs in an early season battle between two powers in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference. The Lady Mustangs came in with one game under their belt, a win over Miami Trace, while it was the regular season opener for the Lady Devils after their originally scheduled opener with West Union was cancelled two days earlier.
Though it didn’t look like it for the first 16 minutes of play, the fans got every bit of their money’s worth as a game that consisted of two entirely different halves, the first totally dominated by the youth and enthusiasm of the Lady Devils and the second controlled by the experience of the Lady Mustangs. After trailing at one point in the first half by 24 points, the Lynchburg girls rallied in the final two periods, erasing that deficit and forcing overtime where they prevailed by the final count of 60-57.
“I told the girls in the locker room that we have to learn from this,” said North Adams head coach Rob Davis. “We just didn’t keep attacking like we did in the first half, we settled too much on the outside shot, but it’s a learning experience for us. You don’t want to learn a loss and it will be tough for me to sleep tonight but we’ll come out tomorrow and practice hard and get that intensity back up.”
This contest opened with the North Adams girls literally on fire, racing out of the gates and putting together a 21-3 first quarter run to shock the Lady Mustangs and their faithful. The Lady Devils drilled a trio of three-point goals in the first period, one each by Wylie Shipley, Braylie Jones, and Karissa Buttelwerth. The North Adams defense also smothered Lynchburg’s leading scorer, Peyton Scott, who did not get her first bucket until nearly seven minutes into the game. After the first eight minutes had run off the clock, the Lady Devils looked to be in total command, hitting on all cylinders and leading 26-11.
The home team did not let up in the second stanza, opening with a 9-0 run, capped by a three-pointer from the corner by Marah Call and halfway through the period, the North Adams lead had ballooned to 35-11. The Lady Mustangs temporarily regained some composure before halftime, going on a 6- 2 run, but still staring up at a 37-17 deficit as they went to the locker room.
Whatever motivational tools that Lynchburg head coach Whitney Lewis pulled out at halftime, she might want to hang on to them, as her team looked like a totally different group in the third quarter and the young Lady Devils began to look a bit rattled. Lynchburg began the second half on a 7-3 run, slowly chipping away at the North Adams advantage but a basket by Buttelwerth and a DeLaney Harper free throw kept the home team in control at 43-26, but the Lady Mustangs ended the third quarter with two buckets by Zoe Fittro and another by Logan Binkley to cut the gap to 11 points heading into the final eight minutes, what turned out to be a very exciting eight minutes, especially on the visitor’s side of the gym.
As the fourth quarter began, that Lynchburg run extended to 16-0, as the Lady mustangs scored the quarter’s first 10 points, getting a three-pointer from Fittro and a later Scott free throw to pull within one with 3:14 to play. The North Adams scoreless drought of nearly eight minutes finally ended on a Shipley bucket and a stick back by Grace McDowell kept the Lady Devils up 47-44 with 2:05 left in regulation, but the home team went scoreless for that 2:05 while the Lady Mustangs got two Fittro free throws and another Scott freebie after a North Adams turnover to tie the game at 47 with 1:01 to play.
At that point with possession of the ball, Coach Davis decided to hold for the final shot and the win on his home floor but a baseline drive late by Buttelwerth was off the mark, and at the buzzer a jumper by Scott also misfired and the two teams were headed into overtime.
Off the OT tip, a Fittro layup gave the Lady Mustangs their very first lead of the entire game and they weren’t going to give it up as their opponent had. The story of the overtime period was Scott at the free throw line as she hit seven of eight from the stripe to help the Lady Mustangs hold on. Two baskets by McDowell Kept the Lady Devils within striking distance as they trailed 56-53 with under a minute to go and a Harper layup cut the margin to a single point, but the North Adams girls just couldn’t grab that lead back. With seven seconds left, a pair of Scott free throws made it 60-57 and the Lady Devils had one more chance to force another extra period, but a contested three from the order from McDowell did not fall and the Lady Mustangs had done the improbable, coming back in the second half to post the three-point overtime victory.
Though she was limited to just four points in the first half, Lynchburg’s Scott rebounded with 19 in the second to lead all scorers with 23. Fittro also hit double figures for the winners, turning in a very nice 18-point performance.
“We did a really nice job overall defending Scott, but then we lose Fittro and she kills us,” said Davis.
For North Adams, Harper led the way with 16 points, followed by McDowell with 15, and Shipley with 10. Harper also hauled down 9 rebounds, narrowly missing the double-double, while McDowell snagged 7 boards and Jones 6. The downfall for the Lady Devils came in their taking care of the basketball as they committed 26 turnovers in the heartbreaking defeat.
“We just didn’t finish around the basket and we turned the ball over way too much in that second half,” said Coach Davis. “We just couldn’t make shots in the second half. I think we showed in the first half that we are capable of beating them and we will play them again later in the season.”
North Adams was back in action on Monday, Dec. 3 at Ripley in another conference game and will host Paint Valley on Thursday, Dec. 6 in a non-conference battle.
Lynchburg
11 6 15 15 13 —60
North Adams
26 11 6 4 10 —57
Lynchburg (60): Fittro 7 2-2 18, Hart 1 3-6 5, Smith 1 0-2 3, Scott 7 9-13 23, Lunsford 2 0-0 4, Binkley 2 3-4 7, Team 20 18-27 60.
N. Adams (57): Shipley 4 1-2 10, Buttelwerth 2 2-2 7, Jones 2 1-1 6, Call 1 0-0 3, McDowell 7 0-1 15, Harper 6 4-6 16, Team 22 8-12 57.
Three-Point Goals:
Lynchburg (3)- Fittro 2, Smith 1
N. Adams (5); Shipley 1, Buttelwerth 1, Jones 1, Call 1, McDowell 1
