Mike Buck, the head girls basketball coach at Stone Memorial, is as competitive as they come. He wants to win no matter what he’s doing. It is just in his nature.
However, after his team fought tooth-and-nail Tuesday night against powerhouse Pickett County in Byrdstown, dropping a 69-65 overtime decision, Buck said he could still see a lot of bright spots coming out of the game.
“I was really proud of the way the girls played tonight,” Buck said. “They fought, they competed, and they did it in a hostile environment.”
The loss drops Stone Memorial to 1-3 on the year, while Pickett County improves to 4-1 overall.
Stone Memorial jumped out on top early, thanks to the play of guards Adison Howard and Lily Hinch. They helped the Lady Panthers push out to an 8-1 advantage and eventually a 14-3 lead.
But, Pickett County caught fire on the shooting of Zoey Nicholson and Emmy Lowe, to cut the Stone lead to 19-17 at the end of the first period. The game went back and forth in the second period with Pickett County taking a 28-27 lead into halftime.
“We were trying to control the pace of play,” Buck said. “Pickett is very good at scoring early. If you don’t take care of the ball or you take bad shots, they turn those into points fast. Their transition offense is good.
“We were taking care of the ball early. We were trying to take some shots early and we made them. But then we fell back to where we weren’t able to make those shots. That was probably when the major shift in the game happened.”
The Lady Bobcats would not relinquish their lead and held a 47-44 lead heading into the fourth period.
That’s when Stone’s Kortney Headrick sparked a run by the Lady Panthers in the final period. She scored 18 of her 20 points in the final two quarters, and Howard hit a big 3-pointer in the waning moments to help Stone finish regulation in a 59-59 tie.
“Once they matched our initial run, it was just back and forth the whole way,” Buck said. “That’s exciting, and you want to be in those games. That’s when it turns into a chess match.
”Buck also said when the Lady Panthers were executing their stuff, the offense ran smoothly. However, he said at times the Stone girls were “frantic” in their shot selection and they didn’t really have to be.
“I also thought whenever we would make a play, come down and hit a 3-pointer, they would seem to come down and match it,” Buck said. “That is a good mark of what that team is about. Pickett County is very good.”
Headrick led Stone in the loss with a solid 20-point effort. She was also a force on the boards and defensively. Hinch scored 13 points, Kailee Waldo had 10 and Howard scored, none bigger than the 3-pointer near the end of regulation.
Ashley Whittenburg and Rachel Houston scored seven points each.
Zoey Nicholson led Pickett County with 25 points in the win. She had eight in overtime. Emmy Lowe scored 20.
“All of these are fixable things,” Buck said. “However, the mindset and the aggressiveness is there. We will take that and I think that will take us a long way. I think that is the base of who we are. There were some gritty, tough performances tonight.”
Up next, the Stone Memorial girls will be on the road Dec. 1 when they travel to Jamestown to face York Institute.
“I think we can take a lot out of this game,” Buck said. “I like the fact that Adison Howard came up big for us. I thought we really executed some things very well, but there were some situations on the floor we hadn’t been in before, so we will learn from those.”