McCreary Girls Fall at Home to Southwestern 70-43

By CHRIS HOLLIS<br>Record Sports Writer

Despite coming out of the starting block strong the Lady Raiders dropped a home district game to Southwestern on Friday night by a score of 70-43.

Three point baskets by Holly Stephens and Candance Foster helped McCreary to jump to an 8-3 lead but from there the Southwestern offense exploded behind the scoring of junior Denay Fothergill and seventh grader Addison Corder.

Corder opened the game with a three from the top of the key before the Lady Raider 8-0 run.

Fothergill scored her first basket of the game to bring Central’s run to and end and then Corder followed with a pair of free throws just before Jessica Pierce scored and then added a free throw to give Southwestern a 10-8 lead.

Foster scored on the inside for Central to tie the game at ten apiece with 2:53 left in the quarter but the Lady Warrior offense took over from there.

Fothergill scored seven points over the final two minutes of the quarter to help the visitors take an 18-10 lead to the break.

Corder opened the second period with her second three pointer of the game and the first of what would be six long range bombs from the seventh grader in the quarter.

A basket by Pierce followed Corders three before Lady Raider sophomore Amber Richardson scored with a short jumper from the baseline to break the Southwestern thirteen point run.

With the lead at eleven points, 23-12 the Lady Warrior defense turned McCreary over numerous times which lead to another big run by Southwestern.

This time while Fothergill scored twice and hit one of two free throws Corder was sinking two more deep threes from the same spot in front of the Raider bench. After a basket by Pierce she then added a three point play at the three minute mark before McCreary could stop the run with a Chelsea Smith free throw.

The run of sixteen unanswered points gave the Lady Warriors a commanding 39-12 lead.

Smith followed her free throw with a three pointer to make the score 39-16 but Southwestern would end the half with another run that included two more Addison Corder three pointers to help push the lead to 48-16 at the half.

Following Corder’s blazing first half the Lady Raiders finally found her defensively on the other end in the second limiting her to just one shot for the remainder of the game.

Unfortunately the inside game of Pierce stepped up and scored fourteen of her twenty-one points in the second half.

After Lady Raider senior Holly Stephens opened the second half with her second three pointer of the game Pierce scored twice and Fothergill followed with a three to give Southwestern their largest lead, 55-19 with 4:42 left in the third.

From there McCreary showed some signs of life with Stephens hitting again from three point range followed by Bradley Stephens doing the same.

After a Pierce basket for the Lady Warriors Candance Foster found the range and scored nine points in the final two minutes to give McCreary a 15-5 run over the final 4:23 of the third.

Bryanna Hodge opened the fourth with a free throw for McCreary and then Foster continued her hot streak with a free throw and two more field goals to cut what was once a 36 point lead down to 19, 60-41 with 6:05 to go.

Foster scored fourteen of Central’s sixteen points during a four minute stretch in which she outscored Southwestern’s team 14-3. Overall McCreary went on a 21-5 run to close the game back to within a respectable range.

After another Pierce basket that stopped the Lady Raider run Foster scored again but it would being Central’s final points of the contest as they would go scoreless for the final 5:13 while Pierce tacked on six of the Lady Warriors remaining eight points to bring the game to a close with a 70-43 final.

Foster was the only Lady Raider in double figures with 23 points.

Corder, whose parents are both McCreary Cental graduates who each played for the Raiders and Lady Raiders in the late 80’s also finished with 23 points to lead Southwestern. Fothergill ended with 22 and Pierce 21.

Harrison Co. 55

McCreary 45

After a long night on the floor against Southwestern

the Lady Raiders had a long bus ride in store for them the next day as they traveled to Cynthiana to face Harrison County.

In addition to the tiresome travel McCreary was saddled with another handicap as they were without leading scorer Candance Foster who was not able to make the Saturday evening contest after scoreing twenty one points in the Friday night loss to Southwestern.

The Lady Raiders trailed by only two points, 11-9 after one quarter but allowed the lead to stretch to 29-17 by halftime.

McCreary was unable to close the gap in the third period and only managed to gain two points on the Lady Throughbreds in the final period t cut the final margin to ten at 55-45.

Seniors Holly Stephens and Kayla Morgan led McCreary with 16 and 10 points respectively while freshman Lindsey Vanover added 8.