NEW MARKET — Beginning the final two weeks of the regular season, Southmont girls basketball hosted Sagamore Conference foe Frankfort on Thursday. The Mounties had no problems of dispatching the Hot Dogs as they controlled the game from the opening tip en route to a dominating (54-23) win.
In the games first couple of minutes the Mounties struggled to find offense, but as they have all season relied on their defense to generate some easy points. South forced 42 Hot Dog turnovers and were able get out in transition which caused Frankfort to foul. For the game the Mounties went 22-41 (54%) from the free throw line. In the win Cheyenne Shaw scored a career-high 18 points and got praise from Mountie coach Dan Burkman.
“She was awesome tonight,” Burkman said of Shaw. “I was really impressed on how aggressive she was being in on the baseline in our 1-3-1 defense too. Even though we struggled offensively we still managed to put up 54 points. We got some experience for a lot of our younger girls who don’t often get playing time which was an added bonus.”
Along with Shaw’s 18, DeLorean Mason scored 15 points and added six more steals to her stat line which has become the norm for the junior who is still second in the state in steals per game with 6.4. Chloe Jenkins scored five points and grabbed 11 rebounds, while Chelsea Veatch also scored five. Both Saylor Woods and Olivia Gray added four, and Kenzie Douglas rounded out the Mountie scoring with three.
The Mounties for the game shot 14-33 (42%) to go along with their 22-41 from the charity stripe. They dominated the rebounds and ended with 34 total. One thing they will need to clean up moving forward is the turnovers as they coughed up the ball 36 times.
“We scored a lot tonight from our defense creating that offense and then getting fouled,” Burkman added. We had to adjust in the very beginning and that took a second to figure out. We tweaked our game plan a little bit and it started to work.”
Frankfort for the game shot 7-29 (24%) from the field and just 1-6 (16.7%) from three. When they did get their chances at the line they converted for the most part as they went a solid 8-13 (62%) in the loss. They grabbed 21 rebounds and as mentioned previously turned the ball over 42 times.
The win for the Mounties gets their record back to .500 and matches their win total from a season ago as they are now 9-9 (2-3 SAC) on the season. Saturday will be one of the biggest games of the season for South as they will make the short trip to take on county rival Crawfordsville with the county title on the line. The Mounties already have a win over the Athenians this season which came back on Nov. 18 in a 39-18 win in the Sugar Creek Classic.
“It’s definitely going to be a different game than way back in November,” Burkman said. “Crawfordsville has gotten better and so have we. There aren’t any guarantees in a county rivalry so we’re going to have to come ready to play.”
Tip off between the two county rivals is scheduled for roughly 5:30 at Crawfordsville.
