Lady Admirals deliver win no. 300
Mayfield, Farragut High School’s veteran girls basketball coach, captured his 300th career win as the Lady Admirals toppled Oak Ridge, 55-35, before a spirited crowd at FHS’s Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium.
It was a landmark victory for Mayfield but he didn’t take all the credit.
“This just means that I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve had some really good players, too,” he said.
Early on, it appeared Mayfield and the Lady Admirals might not be able to celebrate as the young Lady Wildcats got off to a fast start out of the gate and held a slim 16-13 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
But in the second stanza, Farragut’s defense found another gear and surrendered just two points and outscoring Oak Ridge, 12-2, over that eight-minute stretch and opening a 25-18 advantage by halftime. The Lady Wildcats’ only offense was a field goal by Evaiya Mitchell, who led Oak Ridge with 10 points in the game.
“We got off to a little bit of a slow start,” Mayfield said.
Following the lethargic beginning, the Lady Admirals (18-7 overall, 7-1 in District 4-4A) began to methodically pull away and eventually establish control of the contest as they got an offensive spark from a player seeing her first significant playing time coming off an injury.
Meanwhile, the Lady Wildcats (6-12, 3-5) suffered a blow when post player Alani Mitchell went down with a lower body injury and didn’t return.
“They had an injury and I’m sure that hurt them,” Mayfield said. “And we just got a player back from injury.
“Gabbie VanAcker was playing her first real minutes since she was injured and she came in and hit three big 3’s for us and that was big.”
VanAcker finished the contest with 11 points and was part of a balanced scoring attack for the Lady Admirals, who led, 43-25, by the end of the third frame.
Farragut’s KJ McNealy had a game-high 14 points for Farragut. Lilly Mullins added seven points. Zoe Porter had six and Trinity Curry finished with five for the Lady Admirals, who edged Hardin Valley Academy, 50-47, on the road on Tuesday, Jan. 20.
