The Richmond Hill High School Lady Wildcats girls’ basketball team played host to the Tift County High School Lady Blue Devils on Friday night. The Lady ‘Cats would win decisively by a 38-25 final score.
“We played our game tonight,” head girls basketball coach Sarah Jones said. “We didn’t do a good job of that on Tuesday night with Camden.
“We had to come back to being our team and playing our game. We play hard and we play together. We did that tonight. This was a big win and it sent a big message.”
The Lady ‘Cats would once again win the opening tip off, as they have at nearly every home game this year. However, it would be Tift County that would open the scoring, as they scored a three point basket.
The first points for the Lady ‘Cats would not come until 5:30 left in the first period, from two free throws. Their first made basket would not come until 4:25 left in the opening period. They would go on to score eight more points and take a 12-10 lead into the second period.
Senior Jada Brown opened the second period scoring with a three point shot of her own. The second period would be all Richmond Hill, as the Lady ‘Cats only allowed two points in the second as they outscored Tift County 9-2 and took a 21-12 lead into the break.
“We were much more competitive in the second period, than we were in the first,” Jones said. “We made sure to get stops when we needed them. We took a lot of quick shots from the outside in the first that were not needed. We settled in and began to run our offense more.”
Richmond Hill would come out of the half and lead the third period again in scoring, as they outscored the Lady Blue Devils by a 10-8 score, taking their lead to 31-20 after three periods. In both the third and fourth periods, the Lady ‘Cats slowed the game down on offense and played an aggressive attack on defense.
“The message at the half was to force them to play on defense for longer periods of time,” Jones said. “We wanted to execute on offense still and get what we wanted, much deeper in the shot clock.”
While the scoring was limited for both squads in the fourth, the Lady ‘Cats would still lead the period by a score of 7-5.
With the Lady ‘Cats heading into a non-region game late in the year with Glynn Academy, Coach Jones’ message for the team does not waiver.
“We want to stick to our game,” Jones said. “We want to play together. Execute. Do a good job of reading on offense and defense, and of course we want to play hard.”
The Lady ‘Cats will spend the next two games on the road before the final regular season home game as they will host the 1-6A region leading Lowndes High School Vikettes next Friday. Tip off for that game is at 4:30pm.