Lady Raiders keep season alive with 38-29 victory over Lawrenceburg in first round of sectional tournament

Josh Barnett - Sports Editor

Although South Ripley's girls basketball team committed 17 turnovers in the first round of the sectional tournament, they were still able to pick up the 38-29 victory over Lawrenceburg ending the Lady Tigers' season. The Lady Raiders snuck past for a chance to take on the Southwestern Lady Rebels in the semi-final match this Friday at Southwestern.

The Lady Raiders, who picked up their 18th victory of the season, got off to a sluggish start and couldn't get
enough going to put the underdog Lady Tigers away. They picked up an early five point lead after outscoring Lawrenceburg 13-8 in the first quarter.

Kristen Huss nailed a three-pointer to start the second quarter to push the Raiders up by eight. With Huss' three-pointer the Lady Raiders opened the quarter with a 7-2 run doubling Lawrenceburg's point total at 20-10. The Tigers cut into the lead a little bit before the end of the half cutting it to just six points at 23-17.

Neither team scored in double-digits in the third quarter but the Raiders'
defense held Lawrenceburg to just two field goals as they pushed their advantage to 11 going into the fourth quarter.

The Lady Tigers battled back again cutting the lead to as low as four points in the fourth quarter but the Lady Raiders proved to be too much as they held Lawrenceburg off and picked up the nine point victory.

"Sometimes we have the tendency to overlook teams and Lawrenceburg is a team we should not have overlooked," stated SR coach Bill Snyder, "We're going to have to cut down the turnovers and score more points in order to be able to defeat Southwestern."

Just two Raiders scored in double-digits in the contest with Beth Thieman and Kristen Huss leading the way with 11 each. Julie Lipperd and Erin Collier both chipped in 6 points each. Collier led the team with 7 assists and Lipperd and Ciara McGuire both led with 7 rebounds each. Lipperd also had a team high 4 blocks and McGuire finished with 2 steals, which set a new school record for most steals in a season (77).

Ayrica Harvey led Lawrenceburg with 9 points followed by Chelsie Mollaun with 8. The Tigers finished their season with a record of 5-16.

South Ripley will be taking on Southwestern in the Semi-final round of the tournament on Friday night. They will be playing in the first game of the night, which will begin at 6:00 pm followed by Milan and Switzerland County.