VEEDERSBURG — Fountain Central girls basketball coach Sam Karr wasn’t quite sure what to expect in his teams season opener on Tuesday when the Mustangs welcomed in Faith Christian. He thought coming into the season that the Eagles would be the favorites in the teams sectional tournament. When the opening tip came down the visiting Eagles wasted no time in jumping ahead. They scored the games first 10 points but the Mustangs steered the course and had a run of their own. In fact the run ended up being 25-8 going into halftime where FC led 25-18. The Mustangs carried that momentum into the second half and held off a late Eagles rally to come away with a 45-41 season-opening win.
Faith Christian’s Maya Layton had five straight points to begin the third to make the score as close as 35-33, but FC responded with five straight of their own capped off by a Henley Good and-one at the 3:27 mark of the final quarter. The Eagles had chances to tie the game on back to back possessions but only hit two of their four foul shots. FC closed out the game by hitting their own free-throws and earned a big statement win in their season opener.
“We said coming into the game if we didn’t turn the ball over we could beat them,” Karr said. “We still turned it over too much but were able to come away with it. Our defense really clamped down late in the first quarter and early second where we only gave up six total points. That’s what we can do to teams when we’re playing that well on the defensive end. If we could figure out the turnover side of things, we could bury teams and could’ve done that tonight. We had them on the ropes but still to get a win against that team is a big deal for us.”
Layton led all scorers in the game for the Eagles as the sophomore ended with 24 points and seven rebounds. Allison Caplinger had seven. The Eagles were 16-44 (36%) from the field and just 4-19 (21%) from three point range. While FC had their own turnover woes, so did the Eagles, giving it away 22 times.
The Mustangs (1-0) were led by junior Hannah Prickett who began her season with a strong 17 points including four made threes. Six other Mustangs entered the scoring column with Good in her varsity debut having eight, both Aubrey Ashwill and Bella Bacon added six, Brailey Hoagland four, and Rylee Simko and KayLee Spragg ended with two each. FC shot 17-37 (46%) from the floor and 4-8 (50%) from three. They made their free-throw when it mattered most going 7-10 (70%) from the charity stripe.
Karr made sure to compliment the play of his freshman (Good, Bacon, and Ashwill) in their first varsity action.
“Our freshman shined tonight,” he said. “Henley has the confidence factor all ready and for her to step up late and knock down some of those free-throws, that’s something you can’t teach, she just has that in her. She’s played so much basketball that she plays better than your typical freshman. Her knowledge of the game is superior to most because of how much basketball she’s already played.”
Fountain Central begins the year at 1-0 and will have two more home games this week. FC welcomes Clinton Prairie on Thursday before concluding the week on Saturday against Frankfort.
