Lady Panthers fall to Pickens in season finale
Injuries are a part of sports, but the injury bug bit the Ridgeland Lady Panthers at the absolute wrong time this season.
An unfortunate knee injury to senior Sarah Meadows just one week before the Region 6-AAAA tournament - one of several tough injuries the Lady Panthers were saddled with this season - proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and Ridgeland saw their season to a close with a 62-41 loss to Pickens last Monday night.
“We had something like the equivalent of 22 missed games by our players this season,” head coach Ryan Pipes, whose team still managed to persevere and finish with a 12-14 overall record. “Some were at the beginning of the year, some were in the middle of it and some at the end, but that’s part of this game. Sometimes you just get an unlucky break.”
Pickens jumped out to a 17-6 lead after the opening quarter and took a 32-17 lead into halftime before stretching it out to as many as 21 points in the third quarter.
Ridgeland tried to cut into the Dragonettes’ lead in the fourth quarter, but never got closer than 15 points.
Autumn Young had 15 points for the Dragonettes, while Ashley Nelson scored 13 to help send Pickens to the state tournament.
Brylee Dunn scored 16 to lead the Lady Panthers. Senior Amaya Harrington had 14 points. Senior Christina DeSalvo added three and senior Morgan Crawford had two.
“These girls started this summer and put the work in during games and camps,” Pipes said. “We could start seeing it then that they had a chance to be pretty special and they worked their butts off. But no matter the situation, we fought and played through it. I just hate that it ended this way.”
Pipes said his team who greatly miss its senior quartet.
“It’s a tough group to lose,” he added. “Christina and Amaya have been with me from Day 1 and played a lot of minutes with the varsity for four years. They came out every day and worked, no matter how bad they felt. Morgan played hard for us too this season and we’re happy she’ll get to continue her softball career.
We’re definitely going to miss Sarah. We were blessed to get her two years ago. As good of a player as she is, she’s just as good a person off the floor. I think if some college takes a chance on her, they are going to be really happy they did.
Meadows is still listed as the fourthleading scorer in the state of Georgia (25.0 points per game) by MaxPreps.com.