VEEDERSBURG — A streak ended and another one continued Tuesday night following Fountain Central’s girls’ basketball tilt with Western Boone.
The Mustangs defeated the Stars 49-37, stopping a 12-game losing streak to WeBo, while the loss is the Stars eighth-straight. It’s the first win for Fountain Central over Western Boone since 2002.
“They’re a bigger school, and in fairness they play a tougher schedule than we do, and they play in a conference with bigger schools,” Fountain Central coach Jason Good said. “I know they’ve struggled, but they also presented us with a lot of problems early on.”
Fountain Central (6-5) held a narrow 22-19 lead at the half, behind a 10-of-24 shooting effort. Western Boone forced 12 first half turnovers and had just seven of their own. But that all changed in the third quarter.
Leading 24-21, Dakota Borman took the Mustangs on an 11-2 run, scoring nine of her game-high 17 points in the third period, and holding Western Boone to a single field goal for over six minutes. The Stars (1-14) also had nine turnovers in the period.
“Turnovers have plagued us all season,” Western Boone coach Megan Alexander said. “We are in the second half of the season and these girls have gotten a tremendous amount of experience, and as a coaching staff we just have to figure out a way to get through to them. We would do something really really great and then turn around and completely annihilate that great movement with something just so silly. So hopefully something is going to click and a light bulb is going to come on.”
The biggest change for Fountain Central came on a defensive assignment change when Good inserted bench player Kacey Kirkpatrick into the lineup to guard Western Boone’s Emmy Roys, who had scored eight first half points.
Kirkpatrick, with help from Marley Massey, held Roys to two second half points and none a third quarter that saw Fountain Central take a 37-27 lead into the final eight minutes.
“Kacey moves well on defense and she playes super hard,” Good said. “If you tell her to do something, she’s going to do it and I thought that was really a big difference.”
Kirkpatrick added seven points for the Mustangs, while Gracie Foxworthy and Jerzi Hershberger reached double-figures with 10 and 11 points respectively.
Roys led the Stars with 10, while Katheryn Rutherford added seven. Western Boone was unable to pose much of a comeback threat once Fountain Central build a double-digit lead.
“One of my big messages to the girls is Western Boone girls basketball for the years I’ve been here, we’ve been accustomed to a certain culture and a certain comradery amongst the team,” Alexander said. “and I’m looking for culture players at this moment, maybe not even the most talented. I’m looking for kids I want to be in a fox hole with and I know is going to have each others’ back.”
