Despite a 24 point night from CFS freshman Gracie Howard, the Lady Eagles fell to Hickman County 61-38 Monday night in Draffenville. The Lady Falcons can shoot the three and they dropped in eight against the Lady Eagles – five in the first half – to improve their record to 6-1.
“Hickman is a good ball team”, Coach Trevor Jackson said. “Their coach does a fantastic job with them. They’ve got three girls that can hit the three…they average nine threes a game as a team. When you look at their stats, they shoot as many threes and they do twos.”
It was the play of Balie Lester that got things rolling for the Lady Falcons. Lester scored eight of Hickman County’s first 10 points to take an early 10-2 lead. Trialing 15-7, Jayden Jackson drew CFS to within six points but Hickman closed out the quarter on two 3-pointers to go up 21-9.
They trailed 35-20 at halftime, Howard scoring nine of the Lady Eagles 11 second quarter points and they were playing without their second leading scorer and top rebounder Lillian Burnett.
“If you had told me before the game we’d be down 15 going into the fourth quarter without our second leading scoring”, Jackson said. “Lillie (Burnett) is averaging 14 a game, almost 10 rebounds a game and she does so many little things that don’t show up on a stat sheet.”
Howard opened the second half with her second of three 3-pointers in the game. Hickman converted baskets on a couple of CFS turnovers and Howard finished the third quarter with a basket to keep the Lady Eagles within 16 points at 46-30.
Hickman out-scored the Lady Eagles 15-8 in the final quarter, putting an 8-0 run together for a 61-35 lead. Jackson scored for CFS in the final 9.9 seconds, drew the foul and finished out the three point play to end the game.
Coach Jackson said his team gave Hickman too many second chances – “It’s been an Achilles heal of ours…they were getting second and third opportunities. That’s what I talked to the girls about was that and unforced turnovers – we’re still just having too many turnovers.”
Jackson said at the beginning of the year, his team didn’t have a lot of depth, but are now getting some minutes out of Allie Collie and Cate Colburn, especially after foul trouble in last week’s game against Livingston.
“Now I feel comfortable playing seven girls which at the beginning of the year I was only at six so that makes a big difference for down the stretch”, Jackson said.
They will need that depth when they play at Mayfield on Tuesday, a rematch of their 59-37 All “A” Classic loss to the Lady Cardinals. The Lady Eagles record is 2-5.
Hickman 21 14 11 15 – 61
CFS 9 11 10 8 – 38
Hickman: Lester 15, Skaggs 12, Wilkey 10, Midyett 9, Rushing 8, Bartolo 7
CFS: G. Howard 24, Jackson 7, Warren 4, R. Howard 3
