MAYFIELD – Down by as many as 14 points late in the first half, the Lady Marshals battled back in the second half to out-score Graves County 23-15 but came up just short in their 45-42 loss to the Lady Eagles.
“I told the girls if you would have fought for four quarters like you fought your guts out in the second half, it wouldn’t have been a game”, Head Coach Joseph Simmons said. “Maybe this loss is a good thing if we learn from it and learn that we can’t take plays off, especially on the defensive end.”
The Lady Marshals gave up 30 first half points and just 15 in the second half and Simmons attributes that to his team’s intensity and urgency they played with in the second half as well as taking care of the ball.
Trailing 7-5 near the end of the first quarter, Graves County scored the next eight points on three’s by Danielle Waggoner and Raychel Mathis and a final quarter basket by Waggoner to lead 13-7.
Waggoner opened the second quarter with another 3-pointer and the Lady Eagles went on to take their largest lead of 14 points in the game in part by scoring from Dana Adkins, who led her team with 13 points in the game. Nikki Fehrenbacher closed out the first half with a field goal and free throw for the Lady Marshals with 4.1 seconds left on the clock to go into the locker room at halftime, down 30-19.
Marshall County began chipping away at the Lady Eagles lead in the third quarter, cutting it to 35-28, starting the fourth quarter on a free throw by Hannah Langhi and three from Briley English to cut Graves County’s lead down to three.
Mathis and English exchanged three’s and the Graves lead was still three points with four minutes left in the game. Both sides scored seven points in the final four minutes and the Lady Marshals had a couple of opportunities to tie with seven seconds left and a final attempt by Langhi at the buzzer.
The Lady Marshals are now 20-5 while the win gave Graves County the third best record in Region 1 at 17-7. They will meet the number one team in the Region, the Murray High Lady Tigers, on Tuesday in a home district game followed by another district game on Friday at Calloway County.
SCORING
Marshall: Langhi 14, English 9, Davis 7, Fehrenbacher 7, Howard 3, Miller 2
Graves: Adkins 13, Waggoner 12, Mathis 8, Qualls 5, Sheppard 4, Cartwright 3
Marshall: Field Goals 14/38, 3-pointers 4/17, Free Throws 10/15, Rebounds 28 (Langhi 13), Fouls 12, Turnovers 7
Graves: Field Goals 14/37, 3-pointers 9/21, Free Throws 8/10, Rebounds 24, Fouls 11, Turnovers 6
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final | |
| Marshall | 7 | 12 | 9 | 14 | 42 |
| Graves | 13 | 17 | 5 | 10 | 45 |
