GIRLS BASKETBALL: Lady Panthers second at Ham-Co Tournament

The Lady Panthers raced to a 4-0 start through Saturday afternoon at the Lady Foxes Invitational in McLeansboro, but ran into fellow unbeaten Lawrenceville in what was essentially the tournament championship that night, falling 34-26 in a defensive battle.

"Ultimately, we lost the game to a quality team not because of our defense, but because we gave up 14 second chance points on stick-backs and didn't convert 12 points on shots at the rim," said PCHS head coach Alan Engelhardt. "That is a 26-point swing that really shows itself when you lose by 8."

"This tournament was a good start to the year for us, facing some different defenses and styles of play. Right now, our defense is ahead of our offense as I think we did a nice job of defending all tournament, giving up 34 or less in all 5 games. Even in the loss against Lawrenceville, I thought we did a really nice job against Andrews and Parrish who had really caused problems for every other team in the tournament."

Mayci Doerflein led Pinckneyville with 8 points against Lawrenceville. Raygan Yates added 6 points, Sophie Keith and Caitlyn Anderson each chipped in 4, Megan Breslin 3, and Taylor Smith 1.

PCHS was coming off two dominating performances on Friday night and Saturday morning. FIrst up on Friday, the Lady Panthers easily handled Zeigler-Royalton 56-11, bringing the continuous clock into play during the fourth quarter.

Four Lady Panthers each scored 8 points - Keith, Anderson, Yates and M. Breslin. Doerflein and Sarah Breslin each scored 6 points, and six others had 2 points - Smith, Ashley McCurdy, Torrie Carter, Sophie Kelly, Mariah Clark and Gabby Bartnicki.

In their fourth game of the week, Pinckneyville pounded Galatia-Thompsonville 53-26, shutting them out in the first quarter 16-0. Doerflein cemented her spot on the all-tournament team with a 20-point performance.

"We did a lot of things right both defensively and offensively," said Engelhardt. "We shut them out in the first quarter, only giving up 2 shots in the period. I thought our pressure and defensive rotations were excellent, especially with Mayci Doerflein defending out front and Sophie Keith and Raygan Yates rotating behind to get deflections. We also did a nice job against the zone, getting short jumpers and post touches. In fact, we didn't even attempt a three-pointer in the game because of the quality of our other shots."

M. Breslin scored 9 points against G-T, Keith had 8, Yates 6, Kiya Hagene 4, Anderson 4, and S. Breslin 2.

Keith and Yates joined Doerflein on the all-tournament team.

"Mayci Doerflein, Sophie Keith, and Raygan Yates all were very deserving members of the all tournament team as we finished 4-1," said Engelhardt. "We still have plenty of room to grow as a team, but this was a solid effort to start the year."

The Lady Panthers host Sparta on Tuesday for their home opener at Thomas Gymnasium.