THARPTOWN - Before the season started, Belgreen girls coach Chad Green touted Gracie Dempsey as one of his team’s top defenders. On Saturday night at Tharptown, the sophomore guard showed she can play a little offense, too.
Dempsey scored a career-high 18 points on an efficient 7-for-11 shooting, helping the Lady Bulldogs snap a two-game skid with a 57-29 rout of the Lady Wildcats.
“Gracie played exceptional tonight,” said Green, whose team improved to 12-7 overall and 4-2 in Class 1A, Area 13. “She drove the ball well, she shot it well. She did a great job for us. She is one of our best defensive players, but she’s a very capable offensive player, too. She’s a good driver, and she’s improving as an outside shooter. She’s already our best free-throw shooter.
“And the one thing you know with Gracie is, she’s always gonna give you a hundred and ten percent.”
Dempsey helped Belgreen break open a close game midway through Saturday’s second quarter. After four straight free throws by Adriana Borden brought Tharptown (7-10, 2-5) within six points at 13-7, Dempsey dropped in a driving bank shot to spark an 8-2 run. She found senior guard Jasmine Martin for an easy basket and then drove for another layup of her own to make it 19-9 at the 4:30 mark. Dempsey then came up with a steal on the inbounds pass and scored again, pushing the lead to 21-9.
The Lady Wildcats closed back to within eight on a three-point play by Brooke Daily and a free throw by Shaylee Wieting, but Dempsey assisted on a three-pointer by junior reserve Camie Terrell that made it 24-13 with 2:35 left in the first half. Back-to-back buckets by Ansley Tate helped Belgreen stretch the lead out to 15 points before Daily beat the buzzer with a layup to make it 30-17 at the break.
Tharptown opened the second half with a basket by Wieting and a three by Aly Vandiver to get back within eight again, but that’s when the Lady Bulldogs locked things down defensively. They closed the third quarter on a 22-0 run, forcing nine Tharptown turnovers and holding the Lady Wildcats scoreless for more than six minutes to open up a 52-22 lead.
“We did a decent job in the first half with our press, but then we had a little bit of a letdown early in the third quarter,” said Green, whose team forced 25 turnovers on the night and held Tharptown to just 7-for-39 shooting from the floor. “The girls picked the intensity back up for the rest of the quarter, and that’s when we pulled away. We just have to get to the point where we play like that for thirty-two minutes, start to finish, for four quarters.”
Belgreen needed all four quarters to put away Tharptown in the team’s previous meeting on January 5, out-scoring the Lady Wildcats 21-8 down the stretch to break open a game that was tied 41-41 at the end of three. The Lady Bulldogs sealed Saturday’s win much earlier, thanks in large part to their ability to get stops and control the defensive glass.
“We had time to prepare for them, and our girls did a good job,” Green said. “I thought they played with good intensity and did a good job rebounding. Against Tharptown, you have to keep them off the boards and rebound the ball. Our goal was to give up ten offensive rebounds or less, and my assistant coach told me we gave up eight, so that’s not bad.”
Controlling the boards against Tharptown largely means controlling Daily, an athletic sophomore post player who had scored a season-high 21 points in the close loss to Belgreen eight days earlier. She finished with seven points and eight rebounds on Saturday.
Dempsey drilled a pair of second-half threes for the Lady Bulldogs, giving her multiple makes from beyond the arc in three of the last five games. She also went 2-for-3 from the foul line and is now shooting a team-best 71 percent on the season.
Martin added 12 points and three steals on Saturday, and sophomore reserve Autumn Bragwell chipped in with nine points off the bench.
“I thought Autumn played well tonight,” Green said. “We’ve got shooters, and we’ve got post girls who can score, but Autumn is one of those players who can score inside or outside. She can drive or shoot the jump shot. She’s one of our best three-point shooters, and she’s got some length to her. We need her to play the way she played tonight.”
The extra offense from Dempsey and Bragwell came in handy on a night when junior guard Gabbie Moore, the team’s second-leading scorer at 9.1 points per game, played just a handful of minutes after sitting out Thursday’s loss to Phil Campbell due to a nagging injury.
Moore had two points on Saturday, and Tate scored six. Emma Dempsey finished with three points and six rebounds, and Terrell added three points and four boards. Katie Dempsey scored two points while helping hold Daily in check on the other end, and Emma Willingham also had two points.
Wieting led Tharptown with 10 points and also had five rebounds. Borden added four points and six boards, and Vandiver also scored four points. Catie Dawson had three, and Ameliah Dawson added one.
The Lady Wildcats will play their final area game of the regular season at home against Vina (19-5, 4-2) on Monday night before facing Red Bay in the four-five game at the Franklin County Tournament on Tuesday at Belgreen. The Lady Bulldogs, seeded third in the county, will face No. 2 seed Vina in the semifinals on Friday night.