Ringgold basketball teams claim solid season-opening wins at Dade County

Ringgold Tigers and Lady Tigers both passed tough tests with flying colors in their season openers on Saturday, collecting a pair of road wins over Dade County in Trenton.

The Lady Tigers (1-0) were tied 28-28 at halftime, but outscored the Lady Wolverines – ranked No. 7 in Class AA in one pre-season poll – 18-7 in the third quarter before going on to score a 62-50 win.

Freshman point guard Maggie Reed had quite the high school debut for the Blue-andWhite as she poured in a team-high 18 points. Senior veteran Kaylee Womack had 15 points and collected three steals, while sophomore Rachel Akers had eight points and led the way with 11 rebounds.

Also contributing in the victory was Shelby Cole with seven points. Another freshman, Sarah Headrick, added five, while Sydney Pittman and Lauren Terrell had four each. Pittman also had seven assists and three steals and Riley Nayadley had one point.

The boys’ game followed a similar format as the Tigers (1-0) forged a 34-33 lead at the break before outscoring the Wolverines 19-7 in the third quarter. They extended the lead in the fourth to claim a 73-52 win.

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Another sophomore Drake Parker showed his potential over the summer, as he, along with Craft and Ingle, all made the finals in their respective weight classes during a camp at Virginia Tech.

“Usually you do your best when you have a lot of seniors in the lineup, but we’ll just have to see how things go,” Craft added. “We’re kind of thin right now because of our inexperience and the injury situation, but we just have to keep working with these younger, less experienced guys and keep moving forward.

Michael Cloyd, along with two former Heritage wrestlers, Blaine Bird and Cody Goins, will assist the Generals’ this season.

Craft said the keys to his team being able to compete with the elite of the area and state are staying healthy and getting the less experienced guys up to speed.

“Our top-tier guys are good,” the coach added. “I think they can compete with anybody in the region. It just comes down to whether we can get those secondtier guys in a position to be better than those second-tier guys at the other schools.”