Slow start is reversed by strong Lady Ads kick to crush HVA girls
Farragut High School’s girls basketball team got off to an inauspicious start Monday night in its game against District 4-AAA rival Hardin Valley Academy.
The Lady Ads missed their first five shots and actually trailed early against a young HVA squad, which is in rebuilding mode but came in having won consecutive league games versus Lenoir City and Knoxville Catholic.
But Farragut would overcome its slow start to nab a 66-43 victory at FHS’s Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium Jan. 28.
For the Lady Ads (20-5 overall, 10-3 in the district), junior wing Claire Wyatt provided the initial spark that got FHS going.
She scored eight of her 10 points in the second stanza, helping ignite a 27-8 second-quarter run that all but put the game out of reach.
“They have definitely gotten better and we just came out slow,” Wyatt said.
“Claire was great tonight,” Farragut head coach Jason Mayfield said. “I would like to say that she’s capable of scoring about 20 on any given night.
“But she does so many things well. She does so many great things,” he added.
As for freshmen, “Keeleigh Rogers made things happen early and she was really responsible for getting things started for us,” Mayfield said about the young guard. “That was big because (point guard) Madison (Hodge) and (senior forward) Brooke (Christian) have been sick.”
Morgan Carbaugh, senior wing, led FHS with 14 points. Macy Barnes, sophomore guard, had 11 followed by Sydney Chapman with eight. Ace Strickland and Rogers each added six. Christian had five.
Hardin Valley guard Tori Adams, a junior, led all scorers with 15 points. Kiara Inman, senior point guard, scored 13.
“I was real proud of how our girls fought to the very end,” said HVA head coach Jennifer Galloway, whose team fell to 7-17, 3-10.
