BY KYLE LOVERN
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
The Tug Valley Lady Panthers, ranked No. 2 in the state, turned in two of their most complete performances of the season last week. They overwhelmed regional rival Tolsia 50-26 at home and rolled past River View 72-45 on the road to keep their momentum building.
Tug Valley 50, Tolsia 26
Tug Valley High School ran past regional rival Tolsia 50-26 Thursday, Jan.8 in a home contest at the TVHS gym in Naugatuck.
Junior guard Kylie DeBoard got things started for the Lady Panthers with a 3-pointer in one of her best games with Tug Valley. She finished with seven points in the first quarter. Teammate Gracie Hynd came off the bench to score four points, giving TV a commanding 14-2 lead after the first 8 minutes of play.
Tug Valley led 31-9 at intermission.
DeBoard scored six more in the second period and finished the game with a team-high 19 points. The point guard also had nine steals and dished out four dimes in the game.
Katie Hall scored nine, Katelynn Richardson eight, Haven Deskins seven, Hynd four and Bailee Hall one point.
Bailee Hall pulled down 15 rebounds and had four assists, while Katie Hall also had four assists for TVHS.
Olivia Kelly led the Lady Rebels with nine points, while Carly Johnson scored six.
Before the start of the game, senior Haven Deskins was honored for recently scoring her 1,000th point in her career and senior Bailee Hall was honored for grabbing over 1,000 rebounds in her career at TVHS.
“I thought we may have played our best team game,” Coach Seth Ooten said. “The ball movement, shot selection, and defensive rotation that we had were really good. Tolsia is a game you never look past because of the rivalry and how hard they play.”
The Lady Panthers improved their season record to 8-2.
Score by quarters:
Tolsia: 2 7 12 5 – 26
Tug: 14 17 7 12 – 50
Tug Valley 72, River View 45
The Lady Panthers hit the road deep into rural McDowell County to take on Class A foe River View, Jan. 6 in Bradshaw.
The team headed back home on U.S. Rt. 52 with a solid 72- 45 victory over the Lady Raiders.
The win improved the TVHS record to 7-2.
Haven Deskins led a balanced TVHS scoring attack with 25 points. Katelyn Richardson followed with 15 points scored 15, Kylie DeBoard had 13 and Bailee Hall added 10.
Coach Seth Ooten’s squad led 30-20 at halftime. A solid second half saw his team pull away with the convincing win.
“That’s a tough environment to go play in,” Ooten said. “I thought the girls weathered the storm in the second half. We struggled some on defense but we made up for it in how we shot the ball.”
Other scoring by Tug Valley saw Gracie Hynd with four, Mindi Dearnell with two and Alexis Messer with three. Starter Katie Hall battled foul trouble and did not score, but she is usually in double figures. She did have eight rebounds.
Bailee Hall pulled down 16 rebounds for the Lady Panthers. Kylie DeBoard dished out seven assists, had six steals and was a perfect 7-for-7 at the free-throw line. Deskins also had four steals.
Chasisty Kennedy led River View with 20 points.
Gilbert native and graduate Gherig Justice coaches River View.
Score by quarters:
TVHS: 22 8 18 24 – 73
RVHS: 8 12 13 13 – 45