VEEDERSBURG — Thursday night at Fountain Central belonged to a pair of Mustang seniors in Katie Brown and Kacey Kirkpatrick. The Lady Mustangs celebrated their two seniors by taking on the Riverton Parke Panthers. From the second quarter on it was all Mustangs after the Panthers held a 5-4 lead after a quarter, FC outscored their WRC foe 32-13 the rest of the way to cruise to a 36-18 win.
The game itself wasn’t the prettiest that the Mustangs have played but what FC has relied on all season long in its defense showed up once again to make life extremely difficult for the Panthers. FC forced 28 Riverton Parke turnovers en route to a senior night victory.
“I told our girls that in order for us to take it to the next level we have to learn how to play against ourselves too,” FC coach Sam Karr said. “We lacked a little energy and overall passion that we had against Parke Heritage last week and the girls knew that. It’s always nice to get a win, tonight just felt like we going through the motions a little bit and it comes down to having just a little more mental toughness.”
Hannah Prickett led all scorers with 14 points in the Mustang win. Henley Good scored 11 with Brailey Hoagland chipping in four, Rylee Simko and Brown both had three with Kirkpatrick adding one. Fountain Central (17-4, 5-1 WRC) shot 12-38 (31.6%) from the field in the win and 5-10 (50%) from three while going 7-15 (46.7%) from the foul line. FC grabbed 20 rebounds and turned it over 11 times.
The win for the Mustangs is special for many reasons. Not only was it a senior night win, but the 17th win ties the most wins for FC since the 2015-16 season. Their 5-1 WRC record guarantees them a second place finish in the conference which is something that hasn’t happened since 2016-17 when FC went undefeated in the conference.
Riverton Parke (6-16, 1-6 WRC) was led in scoring by both Hayley Mathas and McKenzie Nowicki who both had five. Emily Adams scored four with both Kayleigh Nowicki and Sarah Brown chipping in two each. RP shot 7-27 (26%) from the floor in the loss and just 2-4 (50%) from both the foul line and three point line. They grabbed 30 rebounds to go along with their 28 turnovers.
Karr also took time to give praise and congrats to his two seniors who both have played very different roles for the Mustangs this season.
“Katie has been the greatest teammate and supporter that we probably have,” Karr said. “She could have mailed it in but she’s been our biggest cheerleader on the bench and I was really happy for her when she made that three. She’s earned that. Kacey is our enforcer down there and it was a pleasure getting to coach both of them.”
The Panthers and Mustangs conclude the regular season on Saturday in their final tune up before sectional play next week. RP will take on North Central Farmersburg and then have until next Friday off as they drew the bye in the Class 2A Sectional 44 at South Putnam. They await the winner of Greencastle and North Putnam.
Fountain Central hosts South Vermillion in a makeup game from Tuesday at 1 p.m. Then the Mustangs will prep for Tuesday’s Class A Sectional 54 game at Attica against Faith Christian.
