The Lady Cougar basketball team took an early lead and never looked back on their way to a convincing 65-25 victory over the Hidden Valley Titans Tuesday in Roanoke. The win moves the Lady Cougars to 9-3 overall on the season and 3-0 in River Ridge District play.
Pulaski County saw six different players score in the opening quarter, taking a 20-5 lead. The Lady Cougars continued to apply pressure on both ends of the court, outscoring the Titans 21-10 in the second period to lead 41-15 at the halftime break.
The second half was more of the same, despite Head Coach Scott Ratcliff and his staff rotating all players regularly. The Lady Cougars outscored Hidden Valley 10-5 in the third quarter and 15-5 in the fourth to seal the deal.
Keslyn Secrist led all scorers with 16 points. Hannah Keefer and Andi Ratcliff had nine points each. Morgan Vest was good for eight points. Paige Huff hit two three-pointers for six points. Jaden Lawson and Kenzlee Jones also added six points each. Tori Vest scored the final five points.
Avery Tanis led the Titans with 14 points. Audrey Pearson added six points in the loss. With the loss, the Titans fall to 3-9 on the season.
“We won but we didn’t really play all that well,” Coach Ratcliff said. “Our free-throw percentage was terrible. We were only hit six out of 14 free-throws. That’s just 42 percent and that’s not good enough. We need to get tougher and we need to get better. It was good to see Andi Ratcliff and Morgan Vest have good games. Both of them were solid for us.”
In junior varsity action, the younger Lady Cougars earned their ninth straight win of the season and remained undefeated with an impressive 38-10 win over the younger Titans that featured the JV debut of several eighth-grade players who have moved up since the end of their season.
Eighth-grader Palyn Sweet started her JV career off strong, leading the team with 12 points. She was five-of-nine from the field and one-of-two from three-point range. Sophomore Sophia Hanson also had a strong night, adding eight points to the total. Sophomore Taylor Goble added six points. Sophomore Emma Ritter and freshman Ellie MacDonald added four points each. Freshmen Sara Ritter and Victoria Hale added two points each in the win.
“It was the same story as the varsity girls,” Coach Ratcliff said. “They only hit three out of 13 free-throws for 23 percent. That’s just not going to cut it. We usually do pretty well from the line, but they were all just off it seemed like. We’ll work on that in practice the next day or so for sure. Both of these teams have a ton of potential, they just need to play up to it consistently.”
The Lady Cougars will be back in action Friday, January 6, when they travel to Montgomery County to take on the Blacksburg Bruins. The Bruins are 5-5 overall this season and 2-1 in River Ridge District play. They have wins over Glenvar (54-44), Salem (47-46), Hidden Valley (56-23), Mount Airy (50-37), and Fort Chiswell (66-42). Their losses came at the hands of Lord Botetourt (48-62 and 36-58), Carroll County (40-61), Cave Spring (45-54), and Eastern Montgomery (32-38).
“It don’t matter who we’re playing or where we’re playing them, we need to bring our best game every single night,” Ratcliff said. “This program has been building something for a while now, and that’s put a big target on our back. We’re going to get every other team’s best game every night. They want to be the ones that can say they beat Pulaski County. It don’t matter to them if they win because we had a bad night shooting free-throws or too many fouls. They don’t care if we have girls out with injuries. They want to beat Pulaski County and if we don’t put up our best every night, that’s going to happen. Our team leaders need to step things up and help us get to the place we need to be. We need to play our game the way we play it.”
JV action begins at 5:30 p.m. Friday, followed by the varsity contest at 7 p.m.