The Switzerland County Lady Pacers traveled to South Decatur Saturday and brought back a win, 56-42.
The first quarter saw some aggressive play on both sides of the court. It was an exciting close quarter Ashley Chase was first to score for the Lady Pacers, tying it up 2-2. South Decatur then scored again for the lead.
April Thieman scored two points and tied it up again, and Ashley Bright was next to score two and bring the Lady Pacers into the lead. The next two minutes South Decatur go on a scoring run to get ahead of the Lady Pacers, taking a 10-8 lead.
Ashley Chase then scored two more and the Lady Cougars had gained a couple of more points with foul shots; but Ashley Bright then made a three-pointer and the quarter was showing the Switzerland County Lady Pacers only trailing by one. With about 10 seconds on the clock, April Thieman scored, and the end the quarter saw the Lady Pacers leading 13-12.
The second quarter was again intense. The biggest point difference during the second quarter was in the favor of the Lady Pacers, who pulled out to an eight-point lead near the end of the period.
The Lady Cougars scored first in the second quarter and were ahead the first few minutes — but that would be it for them. Switzerland County took the lead from there and kept it.
Fouls were part of the scoring for the first half on both sides of the court. At the end of the second quarter Switzerland County had 10 fouls and the Lady Cougars had nine. The Lady Pacers ended the half ahead in the game by a 32-26 count.
In the third quarter, the Lady Pacers started the second half out slowly. The Lady Cougars scored the first few minutes of the quarter and it looked like the Lady Pacers had relaxed and taken a nap during half time.
With about five minutes left in the quarter, April Thieman was fouled and made both of her freethrows. The Lady Cougars were now ahead by a score of 35-34. The Lady Pacers finally woke up and started to score with Ashley Chase scoring on a basket, and within a minute she then scored a three-pointer. That had the teams back to a tie game 38-38.
Ashley Bright hit a foul shot and scored two in the last couple of minutes of the quarter; and Natalie Daugherty also added a couple extras in foul shots. That ended the third quarter with a score of 43-40 with the Lady Pacers in the lead. It was the only quarter that South Decatur had outscored Switzerland County, with period scoring of 14-11.
“Save the best for last” is apparently what the Switzerland County Lady Pacers did with the final quarter. They dominated the Lady Cougars, outscoring them 13-2 over the final eight minutes of play. Coach Wayne Ellegood commented that, “Natalie Daugherty had a great defensive game, limiting Rachel Allen to 10 points — who last year averaged 18.3 points per game.”
Natalie Daugherty scored five points and had eight rebounds.
Ashley Chase scored 23 points and was 9-of-18 shooting, had eight rebounds, eight steals and three assists. Ashley Bright had 15 points, three assists and five steals.
Sophomore April Thieman had 10 points on 4-6 shooting and had eight rebounds. Two other sophomores chipping in points were Morgan Ross with two and Tanya Sefton with one.
*
The Switzerland County junior varsity girls lost Saturday to South Decatur in a close game, ending with a score 29-25. Scoring for the Lady Pacers jayvee team were: Megan McCarty with 14; Christina Ahaus with five points, Karista Wengert added three, Lauren Chase added two and Jenna Daugherty added one.
— Debi Sefton