Sumter – There are some games where a coach might struggle in finding a way to motivate his or her players. Then there are others where it’s an easy task.
With his team leading archrival Laurence Manning Academy just 15-12 at halftime on Friday, Wilson Hall girls basketball head coach Glen Rector didn’t have to look far to grab his players’ attention.
“At halftime we mainly talked about 16 minutes of their last home game at Wilson Hall,” Rector said.. “I've got six seniors who've worked pretty hard and been with me for a few years. We talked about how you want to remember your last game ever in the Nash Student Center.
“After that they pretty much had that look in their eyes that they were determined to come out and play well in the second half.”
And that the Lady Barons did. Along with playing the same stifling defense they did in the first half, they scored 15 points in both the third and fourth quarters for a 45-25 victory.
The victory improved Wilson Hall to 12-8 on the season while it finished 2-2 in SCISA Region 2-AAAA, good for second place behind Trinity Collegiate. LMA dropped to 11-13 while finishing 0-4 in region play.
The two teams will meet again on Monday at Sumter County Civic Center in the first round of the region tournament. The winner will face Trinity in the championship game on Tuesday. None of that diminishes Friday’s victory, according to Rector.
“Finishing second in the region means a better seeding opportunity regardless of what happens on Monday or Tuesday,” Rector said in reference to the state tournament, which begins on Friday. “Playing Trinity again would be fantastic though.”
The Lady Barons had raced out to a 13-4 lead after one quarter but managed just two points in the second quarter. That allowed the Lady ‘Cats to cut the deficit to three at halftime.
The second half opened with WH making a concerted effort to establish itself in the low post. That meant getting the ball to senior Aubrey Payne in particular. She scored the first five points of the third quarter in Wilson Hall’s 8-0 start that pushed the lead to 23-12 with 5:26 remaining.
Payne finished with a double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds. She was 9 of 11 from the floor.
Laurence Manning could never really get anything going offensively in the second half, even though it did get back within eight at one point. However, a layup by senior Maggie Norris and two free throws from senior Sullivan Jarecki gave the Lady Barons a 30-17 lead entering the final stanza.
A steal and layup by Logan Mims to open the third quarter gave WH a 32-17 lead. LMA’s Aubrey Coker converted a 3-point lead to cut the lead back to 12. Wilson Hall responded with two putbacks from Payne, a turnaround jumper from Norris and a short jumper from another senior, Marybeth Van Patten to make it 40-20 with 4:49 left in the third quarter.
“It's been a point of emphasis all year. Our main thrust has been to try and get the ball into the post,” Rector said. “We knew we might struggle some scoring from the outside, but you can always score from the inside.”
Norris and Mims finished with six points apiece. Jarecki had five, while Van Patten and Emma Howle both had four.
Along with Payne, Norris, Jarecki and Van Patten, the other two seniors are Caroline McElveen and Elizabeth Busch.
While Wilson Hall is an inexperienced team, the Lady ‘Cats are still a young squad under first-year head coach Will Epps.
“It was probably the worst we’ve done offensively,” said Epps, the school’s longtime boys head coach. “Wilson Hall played great defensively. Hopefully we can learn from this and use it to help us on Monday.
“They played really good defensively. We were impatient offensively. Hopefully we’ve figured that out. I told them every time they were on defense we needed to make them work, work, work. We were coming down and making one pass before shooting and sometimes not even passing before taking a shot.”
Coker led Laurence Manning with seven points. Lyza Pricklemyer had six and Ashley Rae Hodge had five.
“We’ve improved over the course of the season,” Epps said. “We just had a bad game at the wrong time.”
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