HAMBLETON – The Tucker County Girls’ Basketball team hosted an athletic “AAA” John Marshall team last Friday Jan 10th. The Lady Mountain Lions fell behind early and could not complete the comeback and dropped the contest 66-57.
The cold weather and the 10 days since their last game showed as Tucker County struggled to score and had problems slowing down the Lady Monarchs. John Marshall raced out to an early 19-10 lead after the first quarter of play. The Lady Mt. Lions could not get the offense going in the second quarter and got outscored 15-8 in the quarter to give the visiting Lady Monarchs a 34-18 halftime lead.
John Marshall extended their lead in the third quarter to as many as 24 points before Tucker County started to find their offense. The home team cut the lead down to 15 points as the score was 52-37 John Marshall after three quarters. The Lady Mt. Lions then clipped away at the lead in the fourth with a full court press that caused problems for the John Marshall. After 2 foul shots by Stephanie Betler and back to back 3 point baskets by Elizabeth Nichols the John Marshall lead was down to just 4 points with 44 seconds left in the game. Then the Lady Monarchs turned the ball over on the inbound pass and Tucker County had the ball under their own basket with 42 seconds remaining down 4 points. However, the Lady Mt. Lions turned the ball over to John Marshall forcing Tucker County to foul. The Lady Monarchs made their foul shots to close out the game and picked up the victory 66-57.
Stephanie Betler led Tucker County(4-3) with 23 points and Savannah Ambrose added 11 points, 10 rebounds and 8 blocks. Aiyana Kachmarek finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds while Elizabeth Nichols had 9 points and 5 boards. The Lady Mt. Lions JV team picked up the win in the first game 49-34. Tucker County was scheduled to travel to East Hardy on Monday Jan 13th and was scheduled to host Pendleton County on Tuesday Jan 14th. The Lady Mt. Lions will finish out the busy week with a varsity only contest at Notre Dame on Thursday Jan 16th at 6:30pm. For more info go to TuckerCountySports.Com.
