NEW MARKET — Southmont girls basketball was looking to build momentum after their first win of the season as they hosted the North Vermillion Falcons Tuesday night. After Southmont took a 7-5 lead in the opening quarter, they would never trail again and pulled away from the Falcons as they picked up a 45-29 win.
For the second straight game, Southmont held their opponent under 30 points with a great effort on the defensive end. Second-year Mountie coach Dan Burkman loved what he saw again from his team on that side of ball.
“Our defense was communicating, moving all night,” Burkman said. “We were forcing them into some difficult shots and the entire coaching staff, myself included was very happy with the way we played on that side of the ball tonight.”
Through the first two games it had been Senior Belle Miller who has carried the load for the Mounties on the offensive end. After dealing with foul trouble for most of the night and evening fouling out early in the fourth quarter, Southmont was forced to find different ways to score the ball. A total of seven different Mounties ended up in the scoring column led by Hanna Nichols who ended with a game-high 13 points. DeLorean Mason added in eight, both Dori Frederick and Jade Gann had six, Miller and Chloe Jenkins each had five, and Saylor Woods scored two.
“Both Belle and Hanna ended up fouling out, and those our two of our key starters, but other girls just stepped up tonight,” Burkman said. “There were a lot of bad things we did out there tonight, but there were also some very good things and that included all of our role players stepping up when their name was called. All of them came in and played hard and we fought through some adversity tonight and still came out on top.”
For the Falcons Ava Martin led them in scoring with ten points and Cami Pearman scored seven.
It wasn’t just the Mounties who battled foul trouble on the night, North Vermillion tallied 20 total fouls including having one of their own players in Ava Martin foul out of the game. Three other Falcons committed four fouls as well. When all was said and done the game saw 41 fouls and 50 combined free-throw attempts. Southmont made 11-27 from the charity stripe while the Falcons shot a pedestrian 7-23.
“Those are going to be important for us moving forward,” Burkman said of the struggles from the line. “Also though with our style of play, some girls like Saylor, Chloe, and Cheyenne are going to see more minutes. If we do get into some foul trouble or a girl needs to take a breather they’ll be asked to play some more, so it was good for them to get some time out there tonight.”
Southmont moves to 2-1 (0-1 SAC) with the win and will travel to take on Fountain Central (1-3) on Thursday night looking to extend their winning streak to three games in a row.
