ROGERSVILLE – South Greene’s inconsistency and foul trouble haunted it in the end as the Lady Rebels dropped a close 79-74 contest to Union County in Saturday’s third place game of the Big H BBQ Christmas Bash.
South Greene started the tournament down three starters in Madison Hensley, Kortnei Bailey, and Samantha Birdwell. They were able to bring back Bailey and Birdwell, but not in full capacity. Bailey came off the bench to start the game and Birdwell’s foul trouble caused her to miss lots of time in Saturday’s loss. The inconsistency of both player’s playing time doubled with them recovering from illnesses made it hard for South Greene to find chemistry on the court.
“We just never could get a good chemistry going. We had a sluggish start after halftime. We’re up five and next thing you know we’re down five. We start out with a couple turnovers and live turnovers turned into transition points,” South Greene Head Coach Stephen Gregg said.
Four Lady Rebels entered double figures, but it was no match for Union’s two-headed monster of Kelsey Holt and Kyla Collins. Holt delivered a game-high 32 points with 6 three-pointers in her team’s win. Collins had 26.
“We couldn’t find the defense to corral a couple girls. They scored 32 and 26. We tried to keep it out of their hands. You score 74, you’re supposed to win. We need to reevaluate some things on how to go deny somebody. And that comes down to guts and having sheer determination not to let somebody get the ball,” Coach Gregg mentioned.
For South Greene, Natalie Foshie led the way with 21 points. Samantha Birdwell managed to score 16 while Kortnei Bailey and Ari Hoese each had 15.
The first quarter was a back-and-forth swing of momentum with both teams trading leads. South Greene went ahead 6-2 from a pair of threes from Foshie and Hoese. Union ran off on a 10-0 run before the Lady Rebels ended the quarter on a 7-0 run to hold a 13-12 lead after one quarter.
The 7-0 run ballooned to a 15-0 run with a triple from Hoese and five-straight from Bailey. After the run ended, Birdwell gained the hot hand and drained back-to-back corner threes. Kelsey Holt managed to counteract her triples with a trio of three-point makes in the second frame to keep Union on the same pace. The Lady Rebs led 35-30 at halftime.
The Lady Patriots came out hot in the third quarter and took a 38-37 lead thanks to six quick points from Kyla Collins. Savanna Bannister took control in the post and scored eight points to boost their lead. Holt kept her hot shooting hand warm with another trio of triples in the third. Kortnei Bailey tried keeping pace with seven points in the quarter, but Union opened up a 64-53 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“We’ve got to get a lot better on the defensive side of the ball. It was much better to see more offense. If we just had an ounce of that yesterday we would’ve been playing in the championship today,”
Union reached their largest lead at 13 points with a layup from Payton Long. The Lady Rebels started slowly chipping away and cut it to eight with a three from Birdwell and a baseline fader from Hoese.
South Greene’s offense hit a stalling point in the fourth and only made four field goals in the entire fourth quarter. 11 of their 21 points in the fourth came from the free-throw line. They shot 11-of-16 from the stripe in the fourth.
Union attempted to waste clock and hold the ball in the final few minutes and forced South Greene to foul to get the ball back. 16 of the last 19 points in the game came from the charity stripe.
Hoese’s three with 6.6 seconds left cut the game to only three points and gave South Greene a slim chance to force a turnover and get up one more shot. Union would inbound the ball cleanly and make the last pair of free-throw attempts to seal the game.
South Greene dropped a close, hard-fought 79-74 game with Union.
“My biggest thing right now is we lost yesterday because of lack of offensive production. And today we had more than enough offensive production, but found a way to lose on the defensive side. We’ve got to be able to put a game together on both sides of the ball,” Gregg stated.
Natalie Foshie scored a team-high 21 points. Samantha Birdwell delivered 16 while Kortnei Bailey and Ari Hoese both had 15.
Kelsey Holt led all scorers with 32 points. Kyla Collins provided 26 points and Savanna Bannister had 12.
Natalie Foshie was named to the All-Tournament Team after the game.
