Led by seniors Raychel Mathis and Callie Jackson, Graves County took an early lead and kept the pressure on, beating the Lady Marshals 43-40 under first-year head coach Brandon Fisher. Fisher, a former Marshall County boy’s assistant coach, led the Webster County’s girls the last three seasons before taking over at Graves County for Aaron Beth who coached the Lady Eagles for the past five seasons and now leads the Lady Marshals.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game…they play great defense, we’re working on playing great defense”, Coach Aaron Beth said. “They took us out of a lot of stuff we wanted to do. We’ve got to do a better job on Raychel (Mathis), but her strength and physicality is what really hurt us tonight.”
Mathis led the Lady Eagles with 13 points and was one of four different players who scored to start the game on an 8-0 lead. Nearly four minutes into the quarter, Halle Langhi put the Lady Marshals on the board and Layne Pea hit a three to trail 9-5. Pea and Presley Jezik both dropped in threes to tie the game at 12-12 before the quarter ended on Nealey Jackson’s second three of the game.
Graves County out-scored Marshall County 6-4 in the second quarter to lead 21-16 at halftime and took at 10-point lead at the end of the third quarter. Led by Mathis with seven points in the third, the Lady Marshals 10 points split between Jada Driver and Halle Langhi.
A three from Pea and two from Driver cut the Graves County lead in half to start the fourth quarter and they would pull to within two points at 40-38 on Pea’s fourth three of the game with 1:05 left on the clock. In the final 40 seconds, both teams made trips to the free throw line, the Lady Eagles converting just enough for the three-point win. Marshall County getting a final 3-point attempt to tie by Cayson Conner before the final buzzer.
“They played well”, Beth said of Graves County. “We’ve got to do some adjusting. We’ll have another shot at them over there and will probably see them in the post-season so all these games right now are to just get ready for the post-season.”
Beth said even though it’s the middle of January, it’s still new for both he and the team saying, “The girls have been great, their attitude has been great. You just forget about it and move on to the next game.”
That next game will be a big test just a few hours later on Saturday when they meet the #2 ranked Simon Kenton in the CFSB Classic at 2:30.
Graves County 15 21 36 43
Marshall County 12 16 26 40
Scoring:
Graves County: Raychel Mathis 13, Nealey Jackson 10, Avery Myatt 9, Callie Jackson 7, Bailey Wilson 4
Marshall County: Layne Pea 12, Halle Langhi 11, Jada Driver 10, Cayson Conner 4, Presley Jezik 3
