After a defensive battle in the first half, Lake Hamilton took control of the game in the second half as it powered to a 54-31 victory over Lakeside at Lakeside Athletic Complex Friday night.
"We played hard," Lakeside head coach Chris Brock said. "They're really good. They play really well defensively; they do a lot of really good things. We cut the lead to 9 in the third quarter. ... They kind of went on another little spurt right there; they're just so tough to defend. They're so good defensively, and they turn you over so much that right there was where we really needed to stay close. I was really proud of the girls; I thought we played hard and tried to do what we're coached to do."
Trailing 25-12 at the start of the third quarter, Lakeside quickly pulled within 10, but Lake Hamilton hit a 7-4 stretch to pull out to a 32-18 lead with 3:17 remaining.
Lakeside sophomore Mady Davenport grabbed a steal before Higginbotham stole it back for a layup, but Davenport came back on the next drive and hit a short jumper before sophomore Hayleigh Wyrick responded with a field goal with 1:05 remaining. Bittinger added one more bucket for the Lady Rams before Thornton locked things down, hooking a steal and drilling in a layup as time expired for a 38-22 lead.
Lake Hamilton junior Taylor Humphreys opened up fourth-quarter scoring before a putback by Davenport cut the deficit back before another 3 by Thornton. The Lady Wolves continued to push as they closed out the game on an 8-5 stretch.
"Lakeside had a good game plan," said Lake Hamilton head coach Blake Condley. "They did make some adjustments from the last time we played them, and I was really proud of my girls making end-game adjustments trying to counter some of the things they were trying to do. That's just us growing up; that's us learning how to be good basketball players and finding ways to win whenever things aren't necessarily going the way we expected them too."
Wyrick sank a pair of free throws to set the game in motion before sophomore Ronni Formby responded with a layup to get the Lady Rams on the board. The two teams continued to battle back and forth with neither team taking a solid lead for much of the opening quarter. Trailing 6-4, Lake Hamilton hit a 10-0 run to push out to a 14-7 lead at the end of the quarter.
"I love this group," Brock added. "They've been super-coachable the whole year and we knew how challenging this team's been. No ones played them close lately, but we still tried to throw a few new wrinkles at them. Our kids are trying to do everything they can do to be successful."
Junior Taylor Humphreys opened up scoring with 1 of 2 buckets from the free throw line before Wyrick found the rim with a rebound and putback. With no answer from the Lady Rams, Mullenix dished out to Higginbotham who then lifted in a layup for a 19-7 lead.
Formby stopped the bleeding for Lakeside with a putback for 2, but after a pair of Lake Hamilton free throws by sophomore Audri Winfrey set the stage for Thornton's trey on the visitors' next possession, the Lady Wolves pushed out to a 24-9 lead with two minutes left in the first half.
Porter answered the 5-2 run with a trey of her own with just moments left, cutting the gap to 13 points at intermission.
"We don't really have many sets that we run," Condley explained. "We go in motion offense, but we just try to teach our girls how to play the game and how to move off of each other. ... I'm just really proud of our girls for being unselfish and being willing to share the ball; they don't care who scores, they just want us to be able to win the game, and that just makes it a lot of fun to be able to coach a group that doesn't care who gets the credit. They just want to try to do things the right way and try to win it."
Thornton paced Lake Hamilton with 20 points, Wyrick added 16, and Higginbotham had 8. Porter led Lakeside with 12 points, and Formby had 9.
Lake Hamilton hosts J.A. Fair on Tuesday before traveling to Hot Springs next Friday. Lakeside will travel to Benton on Tuesday before hosting Sheridan on Friday.
Sports on 02/08/2020