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Tuesday, Jan. 2 – The Rockbridge County High School girls basketball team suffered a 66-31 home loss to sharpshooting Fort Defiance on Tuesday night in Lexington.
With the nondistrict win, the Indians (3-7) completed a sweep of the regular-season series with the Wildcats (1-10), who lost their fourth consecutive game. When the teams met on Dec. 6 at Fort, the Indians won 44-12.
In the rematch, Fort jumped out to a 13-2 lead in the first four minutes and extended its advantage throughout the game. The Indians led 28-9 after the first quarter before the Wildcats picked up their offense in the second quarter, but Fort took a 40-19 lead into halftime.
The Indians started the second half with a 14-0 run, shooting well and capitalizing on turnovers to stretch their lead to 54-19. Fort led 62-25 at the end of the third quarter and, because the lead was 30 points or more, the teams played with a running clock for the entire fourth quarter.
Fort made six 3-pointers and had a balanced scoring attack, as six players had eight points or more. Trinity Hedrick led the Indians with 11 points, while Olivia Newman added 10 points, sinking two 3-pointers. Camila Armendariz Cruz and Carley Ryder each added nine points, and Lauren Knott and Mia Alexander chipped in eight points each.
Freshman guard Des Butler led RC with 12 points, making both of the Wildcats’ 3-pointers, while Emma Clark added six points, and Sadie Moore chipped in five points and five rebounds. Ruby Goodhart led the Wildcats with 11 rebounds while adding four points, two steals and a block. Parker Dameron pulled down four boards.
RC committed 27 turnovers, while Fort had just seven.
The Wildcats shot a perfect 7-of-7 from the free throw line, but they shot 30.6 percent (11-of-36) from the field.
RC was missing two starters, guards Abby Bouchard and Bella Dorey, due to injury.
The Wildcats will return to Valley District action on Friday when they play at Spotswood, starting with the junior varsity game at 5:30 p.m. On Saturday, the Wildcats are scheduled to play at Parry McCluer, with the JV game at 1 p.m. and the varsity girls’ game slated for 4 p.m., following the 2:30 p.m. JV boys’ game between the two schools.
For full coverage of this week’s action, please see our Jan. 10 newspaper. The story and photos from the Wildcats’ 48-31 loss to PM last Wednesday will be in this Wednesday’s newspaper.
