Lady Eagles rout MP
MOUNTAIN PINE — Returning from a concussion, Cutter Morning Star’s Kyleigh Covey led the Lady Eagles with 12 points in a 39-10 win over cross-county rival Mountain Pine Friday night.
Covey scored all 12 of her points in the first half, and she played a major role in the Lady Eagles’ 11-2 run to close out the first quarter with a 15-6 lead.
Drawing a foul as she made a transition layup, Covey missed the ensuing free throw but came back with a 3-pointer to put Cutter Morning Star ahead 11-4. She then added another layup to cap a personal 7-0 run.
“Kyleigh Covey brings a different kind of energy,” Cutter Morning Star head coach B.J. Rogers said. “She’s a spark plug. She’s a scorer. She’s aggressive. … The energy she brings to our offense is immeasurable. Selena Gasca is going to get hers. She had an off shooting night. I told her at halftime to look to get to the bucket. Finish on two feet, finish on balance.”
Gasca, usually a big scoring threat for the Lady Eagles, still impacted the game and finished with eight points.
“We wanted to make it an emphasis to push in transition,” Rogers said. “We knew that they didn’t have a lot of bodies, so we wanted to push in transition and get some easy layups, and I think we did a good job of that.”
The Lady Eagles ran away with the game in the second quarter and essentially put the contest to bed. Cutter Morning Star outscored Mountain Pine 18-1 in the second period.
Keaira Polk and Devin Humphries registered back-to-back putbacks in the second quarter to increase the Lady Eagles’ lead to 21-6.
Later in the quarter Sierra Wilmath hit a transition layup before Covey tacked on her second 3-pointer of the game for a 27-6 Cutter Morning Star lead. Wilmath closed out the half with two free throws for a 33-7 Lady Eagle lead at halftime.
“(Cutter Morning Star) got after it,” Mountain Pine head coach Blevin Boyd said. “I think they played harder than we did. They for sure rebounded it better than we did. Just have to give credit to them. They executed more times than we did.”
Despite the big first half performance from Cutter Morning Star and a win, Rogers wanted to see more from his team.
“I really thought we came out unfocused,” he said. “I really didn’t think we played well. We missed some easy layups. You’re in conference. You’re going to take a win any way you can get it. A win’s a win. I wanted to see our defensive effort like we’ve had the past two games, and we just kind of laid an egg tonight to be honest. … There just wasn’t a lot of energy. When you play defense, the ball moves, and you’ve got to be moving. I thought our feet were still too long. We didn’t fly to the basketball.”
Moving forward, Boyd said his team needs to work on rebounding, and he highlighted that the Lady Red Devils have been short on numbers this season.
“We’ve been short-handed all year,” he said. “We were down to four girls, and we had some girls come back. We’re going through some little growing pains. When everybody’s here and we can start working on stuff as a team, we’ll start looking better. Right now we’re just kind of learning as we go.”
In a tough night for the Mountain Pine offense, Hannah Mitchell led the team with six points. Boyd said the Lady Red Devils need to limit their turnovers to improve on offense.
“Can’t get shots off if you turn it over too much,” he said.
The game really slowed down in the second half, and there were multiple stoppages for moisture on the floor at one end of the court. Officials and members of the crowd alike were trying to find the source of the moisture and used multiple towels to keep the court dry.
Illustrating the rivalry between the two schools, a couple of players got into a short scuffle on the court, but it was quickly separated by the officials.
The teams combined for just nine second half points, and Cutter Morning Star went home with a big win over its rival.
“Oh, it’s everything,” Rogers said about the win. “You know there is some bad blood. It’s cross-town. It got a little chippy, but just understanding and trying to tell these girls that it is basketball. Enjoy the win, but do it with class. We’ll take a win over a rival. You know a lot of those kids; you know them personally, so there’s nothing better. It’s like big brother and little brother. You love them but you want to beat them.”
• The junior Lady Red Devils jumped out to an early lead over Cutter Morning Star and never looked back in a 37-25 win.
Mountain Pine started pressing the junior Lady Eagles early and forced the visitors into multiple turnovers early in the game.
“It all starts at the top of our 1-3-1,” Boyd said. “Our ninth grader, she causes a lot of problems up there with her length. Then we try to stay active around her, so if we can get out on our wings and get in some passing lanes, good things happen for us.”
Mountain Pine’s Shyanne Cardenas took control of the game early and led the team with 19 points.
“She’s done it for us since I’ve been here,” Boyd said. “She did it last year, and she’s done it this year. She’s a great kid on and off the floor. She just loves to play, and she’s a team player. It might not look like it, but she would rather pass the ball than score. But sometimes we need her to score, and that’s all we need her to do.”
Cardenas got going early with a block on the defensive end of the court before making a nice move to the basket on the other end for an early 4-1 lead. After jumping out to a 6-3 lead in the first quarter, the junior Lady Red Devil offense really came to life in the second quarter.
Mountain Pine jumped out to a 21-9 lead in the second quarter, but Cutter Morning Star hit a half court shot as time expired to go into the break at 21-12.
Cardenas took over the game in the second half scoring 11 points in the final two quarters of the game to secure the win. Cardenas answered a Cutter Morning Star 3-pointer with a drive and layup to give Mountain Pine a 27-17 lead at the end of the third.
She then put the game well out of reach in the fourth quarter with a transition layup and a nice move on the dribble before making her shot to close out the contest.