By Mark Carpenter
It was a memorable night at the Hound Pound at Manchester High School on Thursday, Dec. 17 in a couple of ways for the home team. First, senior Brooke Kennedy eclipsed the coveted 1,000 point mark for her career with a first quarter free throw, and secondly, the Lady Hounds picked up their first win of the 2020-21 season, downing the visiting West Union Lady Dragons by a final count of 47-35.
Kennedy, who will continued her basketball career next fall at Thomas More, helped the Lady Hounds overcome a sluggish start, leading all scorers with 22 points as the Manchester girls got their first Southern Hills Athletic Conference after dropping their opening two outings to Fairfield and Lynchburg.
“With our limited practice time, it has been really hard to find any continuity,” said Manchester head coach John Kennedy in a postgame radio interview. “It wasn’t real pretty basketball but our kids found a way, and give credit to the West Union girls, they play hard all the time. We’re just happy to be playing and to get a win is just icing on the cake.”
“It is what it is and we just have to adjust and the girls are playing hard. We’re just aren’t in the shape we want to be in now and I’m not sure how we’re going to do that.”
The first eight minutes of last Thursday’s contest won’t be going on any “how to play offense” instructional tapes anytime soon, and it was the Lady Dragons getting baskets on their first two possessions from Maddie Taylor to take the early lead, and then go on a five-minute scoring drought.. If it wasn’t for Kennedy, the Lady Hounds would have put up nothing in the fist period as the senior scored all five Manchester points, including the free throw with 1.8 seconds left that was her 1,000th career point. That free throw left the two county rivals even at 5 after the opening quarter.
“Getting a thousand points is a big deal to anyone and I think Brooke kind of pressed a little until she got it,” said the Manchester head coach. “It’s definitely a special thing and now she is shooting for the 1,000 rebound mark but it wouldn’t mean nearly as much without the win.”
A bucket by Molly Purcell gave the Lady Dragons an early second quarter lead but a Kennedy three-point play and a free throw from Karigan Turner gave the lead to the home team at 9-7. as the fouls and turnovers piled up early on both sides. A pair of Yasmin Lucas free throws kept the Lady Hounds in front and a long three-pointer by Emily Sweeney put Manchester up 14-8.
Another bucket by Purcell and a stick back by Kendra Grooms pulled West Union back within two and the Lady Dragons remained close, trailing just 16-13 at the halftime break.
The second half began well for West Union as the visitors grabbed the lead back at 17-16 after two free throws each from Purcell and Alexa Rowe, but again the Lady Dragons hit a dry spell, going almost seven minutes without changing the number on their side of the scoreboard.
In the meantime, the Lady Hounds took advantage and took the lead for good, scoring 7-0 run that began with a Gabby Brown jumper and ended with two Kennedy free tosses that put the home team up 23-17. A Manchester turnover resulted in a Rowe bucket and a drive and score by Turner ended the third stanza with the Lady Hounds on top 25-19.
The first three quarters of the game were an offensive struggle, but the two teams combined for 38 over the final eight minutes, many of those coming from the charity stripe as some sloppy play led to numerous whistles and foul calls. The Lady Dragons closed to within 25-23 early in the fourth but that was as close as they could get. The Lady Hounds began to pull away, taking a double digit lead at 34-24 on a Lucas basket.
West Union cut that lead back to single digits on an Audrey Weakley three-pointer with lust over three minutes to play. but Manchester countered with a 7-0 run that included another Sweeney trey and for all intents and purposes sewed up the win for the home side. The final basket of the game came from West Union’s Rowe but it was the Lady Hounds who claimed the “W” by the final 12-point margin.
Now standing at 1,017 career points, Brooke Kennedy led the Lady Hounds (1-2) with her 22 points (12 of 15 from the foul line) and the winners got a solid performance from Karigan Turner who scored 9.
“We got a lot of quality minutes from a lot of girls tonight which really helped us a lot,” added Coach Kennedy.
West Union (1-3) were paced by 11 points from Alexa Rowe, with Molly Purcell adding 9.
West Union
5 8 6 16 —35
Manchester
5 11 9 22 —47
W. Union (35): Grooms 3, Taylor 5, Purcell 9, Rowe 11, Francis 3, Weakley 4
Manchester (47): Turner 9, Mitchell 1, Lucas 4, Kennedy 22, Sweeney 6, Brown 5
Three-Point Goals:
W. Union (2): Francis 1, Weakley 1
Manchester (2): Sweeney 2
