In a Saturday evening game at the Cougar Den, the Grayson County Lady Cougars came back from down 12 to defeat Breckinridge County 50-48.
Kenzie Renfrow led the way with 23 points and 4 rebounds while Rachael Snyder added a double-double with 13 points and 14 rebounds.
The Lady Cougars got off to a quick start in the game leading 13-5 at the end of the first period. Renfrow helped jumpstart the offense with 9 points in the quarter.
The second quarter was a completely different story. Behind hot shooting from Isabel Grimes and Aleigha Mucker, the Lady Tigers outscored Grayson County 22-3 in the quarter to take a 27-16 lead at the halftime break.
During halftime, head coach Ted Hill said, “I challenged them to put it mildly.” Hill’s challenge appeared to work as the orange and blue fought back to tie the game up at 32 midway through the third quarter.
After a Lady Tiger timeout, they caught fire and outscored the Lady Cougars 9-0 to take a 41-32 lead at the end of the third quarter.
In the previous matchup between the two teams, just 15 days prior, Grayson County found themselves also down nine, but their comeback fell short, despite holding the Lady Tigers to only 4 points in the quarter.
Saturday evening, Hill switched to a man-to-man defense in the quarter after playing zone for the majority of the game. This decision proved to be beneficial as the defense again stepped up to the plate holding Breck to only seven fourth-quarter points.
The key portion of the game was Grayson County hitting 7 straight free throws in the closing minutes which included two by Kenzie Renfrow to give them their first lead since the second quarter at 47-45 with 1:05 to play.
After the Lady Cougars grew their lead to 5, Breck’s Cassidy McDaniel knocked down an open three to make the score 50-48.
In the double-bonus, the Lady Cougars just needed to pass the ball in and hit free throws to clinch the win, but after catching the inbounds pass in the far corner, Renfrow turned the ball over into the hands of the Lady Tigers’ Skylar Tucker with 10 seconds left. She drove for a wide-open layup but missed; Grimes attempted a putback that was blocked by the rim. Tucker got the rebound and was fouled by the Lady Cougars with 1.7 seconds left.
Only a 45% free throw shooter, the sophomore Tucker went to the line to attempt two free throws to try and tie the game. After missing the first, she purposefully tried to miss the second, but failed to hit the rim.
A length of the floor pass from the Lady Cougars tipped off of Rachael Snyder’s hand at halfcourt and went out of bounds with 0.3 seconds left; giving Breck one final chance, but Grimes’ shot was short and Grayson County picked up their 18th win of the season.
In addition to Renfrow and Snyder’s scoring, Bailey Snyder added 9 points and 8 rebounds, Jenna Nash had 3 points while Laura Vincent had 2 points and 8 rebounds.
For the Lady Tigers, Grimes led the way with 20 points with Aleigha Mucker adding 15.
The Lady Cougars will have this week off before a 12th district road game at Whitesville Trinity on Friday evening at 6 p.m. You will be able to listen to that game on K105.
By Sam Gormley, Play-By-Play Announcer/Local Sports
Reach Sam at sam@k105.com
