In the last six years, Marshall County and Grave County girls have played 13 times, the Lady Eagles with a 7-6 edge, but the Lady Marshals haven’t won at the Eagles Nest for exactly six years to the day on Jan. 11, 2013. That changed Friday when they won 58-54.
“That’s the first game of the season I felt our kids didn’t play nervous”, Head Coach Dan Langhi said. Langhi said he was proud of the way kids stepped up when others were having an off night, crediting the play of Lorin Powell who led the team in scoring with 25 points and hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter.
“When Graves took the lead, we didn’t get rattled”, Langhi added, glad to see his team keep their composure and mental toughness and continued to make shots.
Thirteen of Powell’s points came in the first quarter, two points each added by Cayson Conner and Presley Jezik to lead 17-15 before the Lady Eagles tied it at 17 on a basket by Taylor Carrico who had 11 points for Graves County in the opening quarter, including three 3-pointers.
Powell put the Lady Marshals up by two points to start the second quarter, tied on a basket by Sophie Galloway. Free throws from Jezik put them back up by two and they led the rest of the quarter, scoring coming from Layne Pea with a three, a basket from Powell and a three by Conner to finish off the first half with a 29-27 lead.
The Lady Marshals led 37-33 in the third quarter before a red-hot Galloway scored eight straight points for the Lady Eagles to take a four-point lead, extended to six points on a basket by Carson Travis with a Marshall County time-out to follow. Powell scored out the time-out to cut the Lady Eagles lead to two but Galloway added her 10th point of the third quarter to put it back to a four point lead with three’s exchanged by Pea and Raychel Mathis to finish out the quarter on a 46-42 Graves County lead.
Conner dropped in the first two baskets of the fourth quarter to tie the game up at 46, then scored drawing the foul and making the free throw to put the Lady Marshals on top by three points. Tera Colson drew a foul and made both at the line to extend the Lady Marshals lead to 51-46 and Powell made it 11 straight points before the Lady Eagles ended the run on a free throw by Galloway. A 3-pointer by Pea gave the Lady Marshals their largest lead of the game at 56-47 and they held on to win by four.
The Lady Marshals improve to 14-3 with a week off from competition until they tip-off against McCracken County Saturday at home at 7:30.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | Final | |
| Marshall | 17 | 29 | 42 | 58 |
| Graves | 17 | 27 | 46 | 54 |
Marshall: Powell 25, Conner 14, Pea 9, Langhi 4, Jezik 4, Colson 2
Graves: Galloway 19, Carrico 16, Mathis 9, Travis 7, Jackson 3