The McClain Lady Tigers took the trip to Leesburg on Wednesday night to take on cross-county opponent Fairfield and won easily with a final score of 66-31.
The game started off slow for both teams scoring only a combined 17 points in the first frame. The Lady Tigers were on top, however, with an 11-6 lead.
McClain kicked it in in the second quarter scoring just over double what the put up in the first eight minutes and took a 34-16 lead into the half.
The third quarter was another low scorer for both of the girls squads, but McClain found a way to stay ahead outscoring their opponent 10-6 in the quarter and the fourth quarter was all Lady Tigers again as they extended their lead to the final score of 66-31.
“Tonight was one of out better man-to-man defensive perfomances,” said Lady Tigers coach Jared Haines said after the big win. “We’ve been working on it really hard. We’re playing a lot of young kids that don’t always understand the philosophy, but we did a great job of just being tough and strong. Grace Shope is coming into this game averaging 20 points a game and we were able to hold her to half of that. That’s a huge credit to Taylor Polley. She did an absolute awesome job on [Shope] tonight. I think another thing she did really well was [Fairfield] tried to isolate [Shope] in the post and Polley made sure she got a hand on every pass that was thrown in there. Taylor is a great defender and you better be ready when she’s coming for you.
“We’ve also been working on a lot of held situations and I think our girls did a really good of that tonight. They knew to know where number five was.
“We got into a little foul trouble early with our bigs so our guards kind of carried us through the first half. Our post players, it take a little while to get them going but this was a lot better than their last outing. I thought Mikenzie Coleman did an excellent job. She’s really good at finding the open person if she’s covered. She probably had three or four assist just in the second half. Beth Montgomery came in in the second half and really established herself. Obviously we like to have her on the floor. Malea Montavon played excellent as well. She played a guard to start out and finished in the post in the second half and did an excellent job. She was also one of our better rebounders tonight.”
Next up for the Lady Tigers will be their rival game with the Lady Indians of Hillsboro. That game is on Saturday, January 30 and will start at 7 p.m.
Box:
MHS – 11 23 10 22 – 66
FHS – 6 10 6 9 – 31
McClain: Polley 4(3) 2/4 – 19; Malea Montavon 4(3) – 17; Barton 4(1) – 11; Montgomery 2 4/6 – 8; Coleman 2 – 4; Stegbauer (1) – 3; Uhrig (1) – 3; Makenzie Montavon 1/4 – 1. Totals: 16(9) 7/14 – 66.
Fairfield: Shope 4 2/3 – 10; Adams 4 1/2 – 9; L. Arnold 1(1) – 5; Barnes 1 2/2 – 4; Pauley 1/2 – 1. Totals: 11(1) 6/11 – 31.
Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.
