The Carthage Lady Tigers pushed their season record to 3-1 and took fifth place in the Lady Tigers Classic tournament with a 54-35 win over Hillcrest on Saturday at the CHS Auxiliary Gym.
The Lady Tigers were dominant from the start, holding Hillcrest to three points in the first quarter and nine points in the first half to take a 22-9 halftime lead in this second meeting of the young season between the two teams.
“We played Hillcrest our first game of the season at Hillcrest and they played us tough up there,” said CHS Head Coach Chad Jones. “We had a five-point win, so we expected they would be ready for some revenge today. But I thought we played really well.”
Both teams had trouble hitting their shots in the first quarter. Carthage led 4-0 halfway through the first quarter before Hillcrest hit a three to make it 4-3.
That’s as close as Hillcrest would get the entire game as the Lady Tigers went on a 12-0 run to take the 16-6 first quarter lead.
The shooting woes continued in the second quarter with each team only tallying six points.
“We wanted to emphasize at the beginning of the game to take away the three-point shot because we thought against Lamar, they made a lot of threes,” Jones said. “So we wanted to try to take that part of their game away today. I thought our team did a good job.”
The Lady Tigers started hot after the break with an 8-0 run to push the lead to 30-9 with 5:15 left in the third quarter.
Hillcrest scored the next four points to make the score 30-13 with 4:35 left in the third.
The Lady Tigers finished the quarter with a 9-0 run to make the score 45-22 early in the fourth quarter, and Carthage never looked back after that.
Sierra Negrette, Jillian Brunnert and Hailey Fullerton paced the Lady Tigers with nine points each, Sydney Peters scored seven points, Mia Duncan scored six points, Riley Kabance and Karley Crowe scored five points each and Jordan Miller scored two points.
“We wanted to emphasize at the beginning of the game to take away the three-point shot because we thought against Lamar, they made a lot of threes,” Jones said. “So we wanted to try to take that part of their game away today. I thought our team did a good job.”
The Lady Tigers played East Newton on Monday, then they travel to Frontenac on Friday to play the Raiders.
