By Mark Carpenter-
It wasn’t the easiest way in or the preferred way in, but nevertheless, the Peebles Lady Indians are the champions of the small school division of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference. Despite ending their season with back-to-back conference losses to Manchester and Fairfield, Peebles head coach Billie Jo Justice may want to send some Valentine flowers to Fayetteville coach Toby Sheets as Sheets and his Lady Rockets knocked off late-charging Manchester 44-42 on Monday night, thereby ensuring the SHAC title for the Lady Indians. with their 8-5 overall conference mark.
The Lady Hounds had put on a late charge to put themselves in a position to tie for the small school title, aided immensely by their win at Peebles on Feb. 4. The Lady Indians opened the door again for Manchester when they hosted Fairfield on Feb. 7 and to put it plainly, “just didn’t play very well”, as the Lady Lions came out firing and handed host Peebles a 62-53 defeat.
In the Feb. 7 match up, the Lady Lion struck first, getting a three-pointer from Molly Thackston on their first possession, but Peebles answered with back to back buckets by Jacey Justice and Lilly Gray but a basket by Fairfield’s Brianna Barnes gave the advantage back to the visitors and the home team played from behind the rest of the evening.
Fairfield was “hot” and they put together an 8-0 run late in the first quarter to take a 19-10 lead. A pair of Justice free throws closed out the first stanza and left the Lady Indians still down by seven.
The distance between the two teams grew even further when the Lady Lions opened the second period with a 9-2 run, the only Peebles score being a basket by Tatum Arey at the 4:51 mark. Trailing later 32-14, the Lady Indians got consecutive baskets from Arey, who would led the team with 18 points in the game, and the junior forward hit a jumper with 50 seconds left in the half and Justice ended the half with a steal and layup at the horn that breathed some life into the Peebles faithful and cut the Fairfield lead to 36-22 at the break.
In the second half, no matter what effort the Lady Indians put into mounting a huge comeback, they always seemed to be just swimming upstream and the Lady Lions always seemed to have an answer. Peebles’ Jerilin Toller got the first basket of the third quarter but Fairfield responded in a big way, using a Lauren Arnold three-pointer as part of a 6-0 spurt that stretched their lead back out to 42-24, but the scrappy Lady Indians answered that with a 9-3 run of their own, five of those points coming from Justice, as they sliced the Fairfield lead down to 45-33 with less than a minute to go in the third quarter.
A basket by Hope Brown and another by Arey gave more hope to the home team as they had cut the deficit down to 47-37 as the third period came to a close.
Again, though, the Lady Lions regained their composure and Thackston scored the first two baskets of the fourth period to push the lead back to 14 at 51-37. Back again though came the home team, finally getting the gap back into single digits on consecutive three-pointers from Toller, bringing Peebles to within 53-45 with 3:19 to play.
Again, the Lady Lions answered. Baskets by Barnes and Samara Cannon put them back in front by 12, and even when Peebles responded with hoops by Justice and Arey, the clock was winding down quickly on the home team and they were forced into foul mode to preserve what few possessions they might have remaining. The Lady Lions sealed the deal from the charity stripe in the final minute, getting two from Trinity Huff and two from Emma Fouch, holding on to hand the Lady Indians a 62-53 conference loss.
The victorious Lady Lions were led in scoring by Molly Thackston’s 15 points, with Brianna Barnes adding 14 and Samara Cannon 11. Fairfield finished the regular season with a 6-7 conference record.
In the loss, Peebles was led by 18 points from Tatum Arey, all of her points coming on nine field goals. Jacey Justice added 17 and Jerilin Toller also hit double figures with 10 on her Senior Night. The other Peebles senior, point guard Kylie Sims, was sidelined due to a foot injury.
The loss left the Lady Indians with that 8-5 mark in the SHAC but that was good enough to hold off Manchester, who finished 7-6 in conference play after Fayetteville cost them a tie on Monday night. There will be a pair of SHAC first place trophies coming to Peebles this year as the boys team has clinched no worse than a tie for first in the small school division.
The Peebles girls now turn their attention to sectional tournament play, where they will be in action on Saturday, Feb. 16 where they will be looking for a repeat sectional title, playing at Northwest High School at 1 p.m. against the winner of the Green-Sciotoville East first-round match up.
Fairfield
19 17 11 15 —62
Peebles
12 10 15 16 —53
Fairfield (62): Newkirk 1 0-0 2, Cannon 4 3-5 11, Fouch 1 2-2 5, Arnold 3 0-0 7, Huff 2 2-2 6, Thackston 6 2-5 15, Bronner 1 0-0 2, Barnes 6 2-2 14, Team 24 11-16 62.
Peebles (53): Wilkinson 1 0-0 2, Justice 6 4-4 17, Toller 4 0-0 10, Arey 9 0-4 18, Brown 2 0-0 4, Gray 1 0-0 2, Team 23 4-8 53.
Three-Point Goals:
Fairfield (3)- Fouch 1, Arnold 1, Thackston 1
Peebles (3)- Justice 1, Toller 2
