The Owensboro Lady Devils grabbed a dominant victory Tuesday as they’re clicking on all cylinders ahead of Friday’s district tilt with Daviess County.
Owensboro led wire-to-wire in the 56-37 win over Grayson County to put them at 2-2 for the season after Monday’s close loss to Ohio County.
Lady Devil coach Jansen Locher said the play as of late has been something special.
“It’s been awesome,” he said. “We’ve really struggled with 3rd Region wins in the last couple of years. Ted’s (Hill) a great coach over there at Grayson County. We knew we liked to pressure, he liked to pressure. We knew it was going to be an up and down game so just the fact we were able to get a regional win early, especially heading into a big district matchup was really big for our girls confidence knowing that building off of what we did last night and coming in and kind of putting it all together today … I was really proud of them for that.”
Owensboro went on runs throughout the game, including a 6-0 run to start the game which lead to a 10-7 advantage after the first frame.
The Lady Devils started the second quarter on a 17-0 run to put them in the driver’s seat for the rest of the game.
Locher said the game will definitely a learning moment for his team.
“We got up and we haven’t played with a big lead,” he said, “A lot of these girls haven’t played with big leads at the varsity level so they kind of relaxed. We talked about going into that timeout that we’ve got to put our foot on the gas and we’ve got to run and finish, have a little bit more pressure. It wasn’t that pressure on the ball was an issue, we were having some issues with the secondary help and sliding into those lanes.
“Once we kind of started intercepting those passes and moving the ball a little bit more, we started getting those easy points. Anytime you can get easy points, our girls confidence, it just shoots up. I was very proud of them extending the lead in the second quarter, third quarter and that’s probably the first time since I’ve been here where we were on the winning end and could get some younger girls in early.”
The Lady Devil defense also stepped up in the game.
Owensboro forced nearly 20 turnovers in the first half and they kept that going into the third when they held the Lady Cougars to six points in the frame for a 46-20 lead heading to the fourth.
In a game with sloppy play, it’s sometimes difficult to find a rhythm but that wasn’t the case for the Devils Monday.
“They’re resilient and they really take in what the coaches are teaching them and that’s not just myself,” he said. “They listen to all the coaches because all of us have different ideas and different thoughts about things. They’re really good about taking that in and putting it on the court.”
Freshman Alyrica Hughes led the Devils with 16 points while senior Tamia Smith also finished in double digits with 10 points.
Locher said every player on the roster has improved from last season as they had 10 players score in the win.
Owensboro hosts Daviess County at 6 p.m. Friday in the first 9th District matchup of the season.
“We remember the hurtin they put on us last year the second time we played them,” he said. “Our girls have kind of talked about that because they’re always our first district matchup. We’ve started games out well and we think if we can start out well and stay in the game with Daviess County and have a lead or keep it close then fourth quarter, it’s anybody’s games. In a year you’re playing each district team one time, that one game really matters as far as postseason play.”
Owensboro 56, Grayson County 37
GC (0-4) 7 7 6 17–37
OHS (2-2) 10 21 15 10–56
GC: Riggs 2, Snyder 7, Franklin 2, Robinson 5, Cave 8, Lee 2, Milan 4, Dennis 5, Renfrow 2
OHS: Askiyah Hughes 2, Tamia Smith 10, Krystell Pappas 5, Alyrica Hughes 16, Brooklyn Williams 2, Lulu Greer 2, Lyric Lawrence 7, Lizy Phillips 2, Lindsey Gibson 4, Kaylyn Sowders 6
2021 basketball coverage is presented in part by Rhoads & Rhoads Attorneys at Law.
