Story - The Meade County Messenger


Vol. 118. No. 1	January 6, 2010

Hornets sting Lady Waves

This Lady Wave basketball team is an enigma. Put them against a ranked foe, and they play with intensity and focus. Put them against lesser opponents, and you don’t know which team you will see. That is not to say the Lady Hornets are a poor team, quite the contrary. But last Dec. 17, the ladies from Meade County did not play like a senior dominated team.

Almost two minutes elapsed before anyone scored to open the game. Meade took an early 2-0 lead on a Scarlett Powers drive along the baseline. That was the last time Meade County would lead in the game. Hancock County ran off seven straight points and never looked back. “This was not a very good effort tonight,” said Head Coach Josh Hurt. “They whipped us to every loose ball…. It looked like our feet were stuck in the mud.” Coach Hurt tried to take some of the responsibility for the poor showing, “I didn’t prepare them well enough (to play the game),” he said afterwards. He may be right about that, but he wasn’t on the floor; he wasn’t the one not executing or just going through the motions. Senior Carly Evans, coming off the bench late in the first quarter, provided a spark for the team. With two minutes to go in the quarter she scored Meade’s first basket since the opening bucket, a three pointer and shortly thereafter she hit a long jumper for two to close the gap to 7-9 in favor of the Lady Hornets. As the clock ran down, Hancock County hit a long two, and the score was 11-7 at the end of one.

What kept the Lady Waves in the game was their defense. Defensively “we did OK,” said Coach Hurt. Actually, they did better than OK. They held the Lady Hornets to 34 percent shooting from the field and only 29.4 percent for three-point shots. But when you shoot only 30 percent from the field and a terrible 15 percent for three-point shots yourself, winning is very difficult.

The second quarter was by far the best quarter for the Lady Waves. Sparked by Evans and Bliss Powers, the Lady Waves closed the gap and tied the game at 20 with 1:42 to go in the half. A long three and two foul shots by the Lady Hornets ended the half, and Hancock County went into the locker room with a 5-point lead 25-20.

In the first minute of the second half, Powers drove the baseline and brought the Lady Waves within three points. Both teams, due to sticky defense, failed to score for over three minutes, and Mallory Wathen broke the draught when Caroline Wilson stole the ball and passed to Wathen on a breakaway with 3:53 to go in the quarter.

The score was now 25-24, and Meade was poised to tie or take the lead; but it was not to be. Meade could not find the bottom of the bucket for over two minutes, while Hancock extended their lead to 32-24. Evans again broke the long spell of nonscoring with a long two, but Hancock County answered at the buzzer with a three, and after three quarters of play, led the Lady Waves 35-26. Meade, again, staged a mini-rally and closed the gap to three at six minutes to go in the game, but that is as close as they got. Over the next four minutes, they only managed to score three points, and did not score any points in the last two minutes of the game.

Meanwhile, Hancock County extended their lead to the final margin of 54-38, and gave Meade their first loss in district play. Powers led the team with a double double, 12 points and 11 rebounds. Carly Evans, coming off the bench, scored 11 points.

This drops Meade to 1-1 in district while Hancock County is 2-0. Meade will be able to extract some measure of revenge Jan. 14, when they play Hancock County at home.

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