SPRING GARDEN – Spring Garden junior guard Kayley Kirk was itching to play against Class 2A, Area 12 rival Sand Rock. She was deprived of that honor last season because of a knee injury, but she made up for lost time on Tuesday night.
Freshman point guard Ace Austin found Kirk several times on the outside. She sank five 3-pointers and finished with 24 points. Austin led the second-ranked Lady Panthers with 30 points in a 71-57 victory.
“I had been wanting to play Sand Rock,” Kirk said. “I didn’t get to play against them last year, so I was really looking forward to that game. I just kind of had a chip on my shoulder coming into the game.”
“This was her first big game, and she’s worked hard for it,” Austin said. “I’m glad she stepped up and played her game tonight. Maybe that will help us going forward.”
The win was Spring Garden’s first under its new scoreboards, which were installed late Sunday evening. Both Austin and Kirk broke the new scoreboards in quite well.
“Ace come out a lot more aggressive on the offensive end, and I thought she did a great job by letting Kayley play off of her,” Spring Garden coach Ricky Austin said. “We really threw a challenge out to Kayley (Monday) at practice. We said ‘You’ve got to be the difference,’ They’ve got two really good (players), and we’ve got two really good (players). It’s the next girl up. We feel like Kayley is that next girl up who had to make a difference.
“I’m proud of Kayley. Hat’s off to what she was able to do tonight, coming back from an ACL. I told her we were turning this into a positive when she tore that thing. I tried to tell her after the game ‘You were hungry tonight like I never seen you before you got hurt.’ That injury, we’ve turned it into a positive. I feel like she’s done a great job of taking that injury and being able to build forward into tonight’s game and knowing it’s my time. I never saw that be hungry in the past against a good team like Sand Rock. That’s a huge plus for us going forward.”
Behind a pair of Kirk treys, Spring Garden jumped out to a 20-10 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Lady Panthers maintained a 35-25 edge at halftime.
The fourth-ranked Lady Wildcats (10-1) managed to cut Spring Garden’s lead to seven at 43-36 on a made basket by Lanie Henderson with 4:19 to go in the third, but the Lady Panthers closed out the quarter on a 16-2 run and took a 59-38 lead into the fourth.
Kirk connected on two more of her treys in the quarter’s final 1:30.
“It jumped from seven to 20 really quickly,” Sand Rock coach Lisa Bates said. “They’re a good team. Ace is a great ball player and knows how to take over a game and control it. She did a good job. The Kirk girl was hot, so that was tough too. We let them jump on us early and they kept that gap the whole game. We’ve got to do a better job at the beginning of the game, coming out and executing better on offense and not let the gap get so big.”
Kennedy Henderson led the Lady Wildcats with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Lanie Henderson added 10 points, five boards, two assists and a steal. Haley Grace Lisenbee contributed nine points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal. Arleigh Beard managed eight points and three boards. Katelyn StClair finished with six points.
“Spring Garden’s physical. We needed to see that tonight to see how we’re going to adjust to it,” Bates said. “They took us out of our game a little bit.”
Neely Welsh and Maggie Jarrett both netted six points for Spring Garden. Abbey Steward finished with five points.
Boys
Spring Garden 57, Sand Rock 52
SPRING GARDEN – A pair of Cooper Austin free throws in the final 20.8 seconds helped the Spring Garden Panthers hold on for a 57-52 Class 2A, Area 12 basketball win over Sand Rock on Tuesday.
The Panthers (3-0) built a 19-7 first-quarter lead, but Sand Rock (7-5) managed to cut the deficit down to five at 33-28 at halftime. The Wildcats whittled the Spring Garden advantage down to 38-36 with 5:22 remaining in the third quarter on a Jacob StClair basket and free throw, but Sand Rock could never take the lead.
“They didn’t really know who we were,” Coach Austin said. “We’ve got so many new guys, and we haven’t played enough games for anybody to figure out who we are. Coach (John) Blackwell did a great job of making some adjustments and slowing our quick start down. The next thing you know it’s a dogfight to the end.”
Spring Garden held a 50-44 advantage heading into the fourth quarter, but Sand Rock, which recently had a bout with the flu, battled back again to cut the lead to three twice in the fourth quarter. The latest three-point deficit came from a steal by Jacob Cornejo, who found Ben Dale up the court for a basket with 48.1 seconds remaining. The Wildcats trailed at that point 55-52, but then it became a free-throw shooting contest the rest of the way.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with the flu. I think it had everything to do with what Spring Garden did,” Blackwell said. “We got out-coached, out-played and out-hustled. That all starts with me. I didn’t have my team prepared to play. I apologized to them after the game. Coach Austin and his staff did a great job. They were prepared and had a good game plan. I didn’t do what I needed to do to have my guys ready. They whipped us from the tipoff to the final horn.”
John Welsh led the Panthers with 16 points. Jacob Welsh delivered 14 points. Cooper Austin added eight points. Andrew Floyd and Chaz Pope both finished with six points.
StClair led the Wildcats with 15 points. Cornejo collected 10 points. Logan Crider contributed nine points. Kaden Justice, Bradley Jackson and Dale all finished with five points.
“Our guys hustled and fought hard. They did the things our coaches asked them to do, and we battled, but we still did some things not characteristic of us,” Blackwell said.
