The lead changed seven times in the third quarter alone, and was tied three times, but despite a hard-fought game from the Lady Mustangs in front of a tense packed house Thursday night, the visitors from Lynchburg-Clay rival Eastern High School took the long ride home with a 10-point conference win Thursday night.
Hannah Binkley led scoring for the Mustangs with 17 points, followed by McKayla Binkley with 12 points. McKayla Binkley scored her 1,000th point Thursday night.
The Lady Warriors had jumped out to a 4-point lead by the end of the first quarter after throwing three 3-point shots before the four-minute mark. McKayla Binkley and Peyton Scott each put up two 2-point shots, and Hannah Binkley threw in a long three, ending the quarter at 15-11 with Eastern ahead.
The last minute of the second quarter saw the Mustangs’ first lead of the game when Scott made a layup at 0:55, bringing the score to 21-21 after a physical quarter. Lexi Waits took the lead for the Mustangs with a 2-point shot, bringing the score to 23-21 — until Eastern’s Allison Day, who scored 36 points in the game, brought down a 2-pointer at two seconds, tying the game at 23-23.
Both teams took the pedal to the metal in the third quarter with a scoring frenzy, trading leads seven times in the first seven minutes and tying the score three times. It was Scott who took the Mustangs to the last tie of the night with a 2-pointer at 3:07, but Day’s scoring was simply too much to follow after that — in the third quarter, Day scored 17 of Eastern’s 21 points.
By the end of the period, the Warrior ladies were up by 6 points at 44-38.
Eastern improved their lead to 13 points in the fourth quarter when Day converted two from the freethrow line, bringing the score to 53-40 at the five-minute mark. The Lady Mustangs couldn’t narrow Eastern’s lead more than 8 points in the period, and the Warriors maintained it well for the rest of the game. Zoe Fittro shined in the fourth quarter, throwing in two 3-pointers in about a minute near the end of the period, and Hannah Binkley threw in two threes as well.
“I thought we came out and played this team tough,” said Lynchburg-Clay coach Whitney Lewis. “They create quite a matchup problem for us with their size and the speed of the game they play. They were able to control the tempo in the second half — I thought in the first half we did a good job of pressuring the ball and causing some turnovers and some problems for them. In the second half, we weren’t able to do that as easily.”
Summary
Eastern — 15 8 21 23 — 67
Lynchburg-Clay — 11 12 15 19 — 57
EHS: Broughton (3)-9; Reynolds 2-2/3-6; Day 13-10/12-36; Farris 1-2; Pennington 3(2)-2/2-14
Totals: 19(5)-14/17
LCHS: Fittro 3-2/2-11; Waits 2-2/3-6; Scott 4-3/4-11; H. Binkley 1(5)-17; M. Binkley 3(2)-0/1-12
Totals: 10(10)-7/10-57
Reach David Wright at 937-402-2570, or on Twitter @SportsWrighter.
