The North Greene Lady Huskies had no trouble extending their season on Friday night as they ran away from Hancock County for a 77-14 win in the Region 1-1A Tournament.
Coach James Buchanan later said “You want to give them your very best, that’s how you show true respect to your opponent and the game and they have done that all year. When you come into a game where you’re a little bit favored they came out and played hard…they played the right way and played with a lot of effort.”
The Lady Huskies were clicking on all cylinders early in the first quarter with Tralyn Southerland scoring the first six points of the game. Southerland sank a pair of free throws just 20 seconds into the game and followed that with back-to-back put backs off the glass to give the Lady Huskies a 6-0 lead.
Ella Head then drilled a corner three and Eva Leonard followed that with a corner three of her own from the opposite side. Cadie McDevitt got into the action with a pair from the stripe just before Head went coast-to-coast for a layup after a steal.
McDevitt dropped a corner three and backed that up with a steal and a coast-to-coast layup to give the Lady Huskies a 23-6 with just under two minutes remaining in the first quarter.
The Lady Huskies led 26-6 after one quarter of action.
The second quarter was a carbon copy of the first with everyone contributing in some way, either by defense, setting screens or scoring. Josie Graham put the first two points of the quarter on the board with a short jumper in the lane and McDevitt’s layup in transition kept the scoring parade going.
Leonard hit a triple from the elbow, Graham scored on a pass from Head and Leonard drilled another triple from the same spot and the Lady Huskies led 41-6. North Greene eventually led at the half by a whopping 41 points at 49-8.
Not a single starter was on the floor as the third quarter got underway, but the Lady Huskies didn’t miss a beat. Kinlea Eastep grabbed a rebound down low and muscled up a put back for her first two points of the game. Addi Dean took over the game on both ends of the court over the next four minutes of game time with three steals and scoring on four of the next five possessions to extend the Lady Huskies’ lead to 66-12 at the end of three quarters.
In the fourth quarter the clock ran continuously but that didn’t keep Satine Johnson out of the scoring column as she made back-to-back buckets. McDevitt got some much-needed minutes after several weeks fighting injury and had her breakout game of the season scoring six of her game high 23 in that fourth quarter en route to 77-14 win.
Buchanan said of McDevitt, “It was a very unfortunate situation with her early in the season pulling a hamstring, she was our second leading scorer around the holidays, as a sophomore, and she missed a big chunk of games and didn’t play any meaningful minutes in any of our conference games. She tried to get back and we probably tried to get her back too early. Now she’s felling great, it was great to see her running up and down the floor smiling again, pain free and having fun, she gives us a little more ammunition.”
The Lady Huskies played all 10 players in the game, with eight in the scoring column.
With the win North Greene advances to the Region 1-1A Tournament semifinals where they will play Cosby on Monday at 7:30 PM at Washburn. Cosby beat Hampton 58-41 on Friday in its quarterfinal contest.
NORTH GREENE – McDevitt 23, Dean 12, Leonard 11, Head 11, Southerland 8, Johnson 5, Graham 4, Eastep 2
HANCOCK COUNTY – Pyne 8, Gibson 4, Snyder 2
