COVINGTON – North Montgomery's girls picked up their fourth straight win and seventh of the season, but it wasn't easy and it wasn't pretty.
The Chargers needed overtime to post the 38-37 win over Covington ad it was a grateful squad that left with the victory that moves them to 7-3 o the season.
“It was the ugliest win of the season,” North coach Ryan Nuppau said, “but a win is a win. We were flat, unfocused ad made a lot of bad decisions. We've gotten better as each game has gone forward, but we got just enough tonight.”
Solid in the middle and leading the way for North was Katie Rice.
The senior hit her first six shots and finished with a 9-of-13 game, leading all scorers before fouling out in the overtime.
She finished her double-double with 13 reouds.
Freshman Piper Ramey added seven points, including a big basket in the OT, and grabbed 10 rebounds, three in the extra time and all coming after Rice fouled out.
“Katie is so consistent,” Nuppau said, “and Piper has gotten better each of these 10 games and has gotten more comfortable. She sees the court well, understands the game and is strong underneath. Madi Welch hit two big three's for us too. We are going to have to get scoring from more than those three though, as we move forward into the Sagamore Conference.”
Welch hit her first shot of the game, a trey, that expanded a North lead in the first quarter. The senior hit her last shot, another three, that gave her team the lead back in the overtime. She was 4-of-4 from the line for 10 points.
The overtime was forced by the Trojans, who fall to 2-4 on the season, when they shut North out in the fourth quarter.
It was 31-29 Chargers at the end of three, and 31-31 at the end of regulation.
The home squad had a couple chances to win, but two free throws were missed at the end of the fourth and two more went astray with only a couple seconds left in the OT.
“I thought both teams played really hard,” Covington coach Travis Rown said. “I'm really proud of how hard we played the entire game. It was the hardest effort we have had all season, and I'm hoping it can be a turnig point as we realize how hard we can play. I thought we played good defense, and got a lot of deflections. North played good defense too. We made some halftime adjustments on Rice and made it a little harder for her to score. At the end, we just couldn't get a couple shots to fall.”
The Trojans were led in scoring by Kali Pettit. The sophomore came off the bench to drop 11 points, going 5-of-6 from the field.
Shia Haymaker added nine points and was the leading reounder with eight.
After both teams shot well in the first three quarters, nothig fell late. orth finished 14-of-38 from the field, 2-of-6 from deep, and 8-of-19 from the line, which drew no compliments from the coach.
The Trojans were 15-of-48 from the field, 1-of-14 from deep and 6-of-15 from the stripe. North won the reound battle 42-35 and had 26 turnovers to Covington's 22.
The Chargers are back in action next Tuesday at home with a SAC showdown vs Tri-West.
