Lady Tigers defeat Blanchester

The McClain Lady Tigers varsity basketball team raised their overall record to 7-5 after a convincing 59-17 victory over Blanchester in Greenfield last Saturday afternoon (Jan. 6).

McClain (3-2 in the Frontier Athletic Conference) used some solid defense and balanced scoring on offense to defeat the visiting Lady Wildcats in the Saturday non-conference ballgame.

Nine Lady Tigers scored in the contest, led by senior Haylee Havens who had a game-high 13 points, and was the only Lady Tiger to reach double figures. It was also a game that first-year head coach Shania Massie was able to get everyone in giving them valuable varsity playing time.

“I was able to get everyone in today, including a couple of our JV players, and I think they all stepped up and played pretty well,” said Massie.

One big concern for McClain was when freshman point guard Paisley Pryor, who scored the game’s first five points, had to go to the bench with an injury and was not able to return.

“We don’t really know yet what Paisley’s status is right now, but hopefully she’s going to be OK and will be able to play next week when we travel to Jackson for a big league game,” Massie said.

But after Pryor’s departure from the game, several of her teammates really stepped up in her absence and played extremely well on both ends of the court. Not only were the Lady Tigers clicking on offense, but on defense they were superb, giving up just 17 points the entire game.

“Our defense was really good today, and we’ve been working on that a lot in practice,” Massie said. “I still think that defense is probably the most important part of our overall game.

“On offense, I thought we took good care of the basketball for the most part, and that was nice to see after having too many turnovers in a few of our previous games.”

The Lady Tigers jumped out to a 17-8 lead after one period and led 37-10 at the half after scoring 20 points in the second quarter while holding Blanchester to just two.

Kaitlyn Jett and Pryor led McClain with five points each in the first period,and Havens and Anna Eikenberry were the scoring leaders in the second frame where they both scored six points.

In the second half, Coach Massie was able to start getting a lot of her younger players into the game, and McClain was still able to outscore the Lady Wildcats 22-7 and win easily.

Despite only having one scorer (Havens) in double figures, the Lady Tigers got lots of offensive support from several other players.

Rounding out the scoring for McClain were Anna Eikenberry 8, Leah Lovett 8, Kaitlyn Jett 7, Larah Henson 6, Paisley Pryor 5, Lillie Saunders 5 and Lindsey Hutchinson 5. The Lady Tigers converted 6-of-14 free-throws for 44 percent.

Blanchester was led by Shelbie Panetta, who had a team-high 10 points.

McClain will next travel to Jackson on Wednesday, Jan. 10 to start the second half of the season and conference play.