A superior performance on the offensive glass helped propel the Meigs County Lady Tigers to a 47-41 win on Tuesday night at home against Polk County. However, the Tigers couldn’t complete their second half comeback en route to a 75-67 defeat at the hands of the Wildcats.
The Lady Tigers and Wildkittens played to a 12-12 draw in the opening quarter. Evenly matched, both teams ran sets to get some easy baskets. Julia Howard had four points in early transition layups and she hit both her free throws in the first.
The second quarter was more of the same as both teams still were trying to figure each other out. The Wildkittens won the quarter 10-8, attacking the basket on some designed back door plays that freed up their players. The Lady Tigers found themselves down two points going into the half, 22-20.
“Polk County is a good team, they got after us, we got after them. Evenly matched, there were times where we got out hustled, but that’s the mental breakdowns we have to grow through,” said Lady Tigers head coach Derika Jenkins.
The Lady Tigers crashed the offensive glass every possession in the second half and turned up their defensive pressure, going on a 26-19 run in the second half. Full court press and getting out in transition for easy layups. Howard, Mattie Moore and Talley Lawson each scored seven points in the second half, making up the balanced offensive attack.
“We fought and defensively we got better. The second half defensively we got better. We slowed the ball down, ran our stuff and we got good looks. It was just the fight,” said Jenkins.
The Wildcats didn’t let up in the second quarter as they went on a 25-17 run in the second quarter. The visitors hit three treys in the third and got good looks at the basket. Tucker Patterson scored nine in the second quarter and finished with 15 in the first half.
“Lack of defensive effort,” said Meigs head coach Sammy Perkinson. “We just were kind of going through the motions letting Patterson go left. We know he’s going left, we know he’s going left, and no matter who I put on him they let him go left. Not only did he have a little help when he went left but we just didn’t have any defensive urgency about us. We gotta find that.”
In the second half the Tigers got after it defensively, outscoring Polk County 36-33 after the break. Payton Armour and Ethan Meadows both exploded in the second half.
Armour had 15 in the third quarter and Meadows had 12 in the fourth. The Tigers cut the lead to three, but every time Patterson would answer the bell, scoring 16 in the second half. He finished with 31.
“Second half I guess midway through the third quarter we found it defensively. We guarded like we were supposed to with effort. We have to bring that effort to the table as soon as that ball is tipped off and keep that intensity the whole game,” said Perkinson.
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