by Rusty Ellis

Girls

The Red Boiling Springs Lady Bulldogs used a balanced scoring attack and a dominant defensive performance in the fourth quarter to take down Gordonsville in the District 7-A girls play-in game.

A back-and-forth affair early saw RBS take a slim lead into the second quarter, as Makenize Herron’s two free throws trimmed the Lady Bulldog lead to just 14-12.

In the second, RBS stretched their lead out to six at one points thanks to a Zoe McDuffee three, but Kali Underwood buried a trey of her own to make it just a 22-19 lead for Red Boiling Springs at the halftime break.

Gordonsville got four points from Ashlyn Naylor and another bucket from Mollie Storey to take a 25-22 lead out of the break, but RBS quickly answered with a 7-0 run of their own to take a 29-25 lead. After a Herron three, it was just a 29-28 game heading into the fourth quarter.

There, RBS locked down defensively and limited the Tigerettes to just two points en route to a 43-30 victory in the 7-A play-in game.

McDuffee led all scorers with 16 points, while Sidney Massengille added 13 points of her own for head coach Terra Allen, who praised two of her younger players for stepping up in a win-or-go-home game.

“I always knew they were going to be special,” Allen said. “They were the main reason I came to Red Boiling Springs…You have an eighth grader in (McDuffee) stepping up and doing everything, and Sidney Massengille stepped up defensively as well and hit some big threes. Her putback late helped seal the deal for us.”

Allen says that over the last few games, she still thinks her team hasn’t played their best game, and with top-seeded Pickett County awaiting them on Thursday at 6:30 P.M., she knows they’ll need their best and then some.

“The last time we played them, even though we lost, I thought my team played well,” Allen said. “I don’t think we played well tonight, so we’ve just got to figure out a way to come in and play 32 minutes with tough intensity at the defensive end of the floor. I gave them a defensive goal of holding them to 55 points, which seemed crazy because they had just scored 98, and we held them to 48, so if we can do something like that, I’d be pretty pleased with my young team.”

Boys

The Clay County Bulldogs held off a furious rally from the Clarkrange Buffaloes and closed the fourth quarter strong in an 81-58 win in the boys play-in game.

The Bulldogs got off to a good start defensively by limited the Buffaloes to just eight points in the first quarter, and with 5:12 to go in the second, they took their largest lead of the game to that point at 25-12 on a Nolan Adams three-point basket. Nate Adams finished a layup right before the buzzer to give Clay a 42-25 lead at the break.

Clay County pushed their lead to 59-35 early in the third quarter, but the Buffalos refused to go away and put together a massive 21-4 run to cut the lead down to 63-56 with 6:56 to go in the fourth quarter, as Jack Cordell’s basket got the Clarkrange as close as they’d been all game.

They didn’t have enough steam to get over the finish line however, as Clay closed on an 18-2 run of their own to finish out the 81-58 win over Clarkrange in the play-in game.

Nate Adams finished with a game-high 25 points, while Weston Birdwell added 16 points. Nolan Adams and Lance Burchett scored 14 and 13 points, respectively, for head coach Rob Edwards.

“We came out and played really well in the first half, and then they chipped away in the third,” Edwards said. “Credit to Clarkrange, they were gritty and tough, a bunch of kids that really play hard…fortunately, we were able to make shots down the stretch and pull away.”

Clay County will now take on Pickett County on Friday at 6:30 P.M., and Edwards knows his team will need their best game defensively in order to make it back to the 7-A title game.

“We’ve got to defend better,” Edwards said. “We gave up a lot of straight line-drives to the basket there late in the game, and that’s how they were able to get back into the game. We’ve got to defend and communicate better, and we’ve got to defensive-rebound better.”