Peebles senior Kenzie Morrison goes up for a transition bucket as part of her 23-point effort in the Lady Indians’ big win over Whiteoak on December 9. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
After opening the seasomn with a pair of losses, Coach Sidney Pell and her Peebles Lady Indians seem to have righted the ship as they are now in the midst of a five-game winnign streak to improve their season mark to 5-2, 3-1 in Southern Hills Athletic Conference play.
After capturing victories on the raod at Miami Trace and at Fayetteville to get to the .500 mark, the Lady Indians hosted the Whiteoak Lady Wildcats in SHAC actio, that turned out to be very one-sided SHAC action. By all accounts, the Whiteoak girls are much improved this season but at Peebles, the Lady Indians paif no attention to those reports as they totally dominated from start to finish and crushed the Lady Cats by a final count of 56-13, a score which likely would have been much worse if not for the new OHSAA running clock rule.
After Peebles took the JV contest 38-19, the varsity squads took the court and the Lady Indians stormed out of the gate with the game’s first 10 points, all scored by theur dynamic backcourt duo of sophomore Payton Johnson and senior Kenzie Morrison, who eventually combined for 49 points in the game. The Lady Cats got their first basket of the game from Bri Hill with under a minute left in the first quarter, whigh turned out to be their only basket of the entire first half. Peebles held a 12-2 advantage after the ititial eight minutes, but that was, to quote Robert Lamm, “only the beginning”.
The Lady Indians went wild in the second period, outscoring Whiteoak 21-1, with all but three of those points coming from Johnson and Morriosn, who ran the court at will, getting easy basket after easy basket. Things got so bad for the Lady Cats that Coach Ron Harris took his starters to the locker room before the half even ended, an unusual move, but his team still stared at an inusrmountable 33-3 halftime deficit.
When the Lady Indians opened the third quarter with baskets by Johnson, Morrison, and Marisa Moore, the running clock rule went into eefect, speeding up the game’s foregone conclusion. Morrison had a big third quarter with 13 points as the home team extended its lead to 50-4, as the Lady Cats went yet another quarter without a field goal.
Whiteoak did manage a pair of two-point baskets over a rapid final eight minutes, but that was not even a drop int he bucket as the Lady Indians picked up their third win of the season by the resounding 56-13 final.
As mentioned, it was the duo of Payton Johsnon and Kenzie Morrison who literally did all the offensive damage for the winners, scoring 26 and 23 points respectively, combining also ti hit six three-point goals.
With that easy win under their belts, Coach Pell and her troops traveled on Saturday, December 11 to Albany Alexander High School to compete in the Alexander Hoops Classic and compete they did, coming home with a 45-36 win over Nelsonville-York. The Peebles girls improved to 5-2 on the season on Monday, December 13 when they picked up a 65-22 conference win at Ripley.
On Thursday, December 16 the Lady Indians will be at Manchester in SHAC action and then at home at noon on Saturday, December 18 to face Southeastern Ross.
Whiteoak
2 1 1 9 —13
Peebles
12 21 17 6 —56
Whiteoak (13): McMullen 0 1-2 1, Hill 1 0-2 2, Carr 0 1-2 1, Roberts 1 0-0 2, Parr 1 2-2 5, Campbell 1 0-0 2, Team 4 4-8 13.
Peebles (56): Workman 1 1-2 3, Maddox 0 0-2 0, Moore 1 0-0 2, McFarland 1 0-0 2, Morrison 8 5-5 23, Johnson 10 2-2 26, Team 21 8-11 56.
Three-Point Goals:
Whiteoak (1)- Parr 1
Peebles (6)- Morrison 2, Johnson 4
