The Belgreen High School varsity girls’ basketball team improved to 5-2 on the year after knocking off the Russellville Lady Golden Tigers (2-3) 55-44 on Tuesday night. It wasn’t the cleanest game ever played with both teams committing a lot of turnovers, but the Lady Bulldogs were able to get the job done at home for their second win against a Franklin County opponent.
Though happy with the win, Belgreen head coach Chad Green admits his team had runs of sloppy or inconsistent play. It’s an issue he believes will fix itself as the campaign goes on and players start clicking together.
“I think we’re still kind of gelling together. It’s going to take a little time to get it all together, you know?” Green told the Franklin Free Press following the game. “We graduated nobody last year, so the majority of the team came back and has been with us for a while, but it’s just one of those things. It’s early in the season. Do I think we’re in mid-season form? No, not at all. It just takes some time.”
The Lady Bulldogs jumped out to an early 21-11 lead at the end of the first period of play, but the visitors went on an 18-13 run in the second. Led by a nine-point period by Angeleah Smith—she would finish the game as the Lady Golden Tigers’ top scorer with 16 points—Russellville cut the hosts advantage to five points at the halftime break.
Size-wise, Russellville and Belgreen were fairly evenly matched, but RHS was able to out-rebound the Lady Bulldogs at times, giving the Lady Golden Tigers second-chance opportunities that allowed them to cut into Belgreen’s lead.
“I thought they killed us on the boards,” Green said. “I thought our rebounding was absolutely horrible tonight. That’s something we gotta get better at if we’re gonna go on to Hanceville and Birmingham at the end of the year in the playoffs.
“We got ball-handlers, we got shooters, we got girls that can slash the lane and stuff like that. My posts were much better tonight; Lilliana (Willingham), Carson (Hovater), and Jacqueline (Alban) came off the bench and did a good job for us. But we’ve gotta rebound better,” he added.
In the second half, though, Belgreen came out firing and put Russellville under intense pressure up and down the court. After a Russellville charge, a couple of steals that led to fast-break points, and some defensive rebounds, Belgreen took advantage and outscored RHS 15-6 in the third period. At one point, the Lady Bulldogs held a 17 point advantage.
A little bit of impatience on Belgreen’s part, according to Green, allowed the Lady Golden Tigers to cut back into the double-digit BHS lead late in the third, but Russellville never got within 10 points the remainder of the contest.
“You want to be patient, you know? If we’ve got something easy we definitely want to take it. I’m not telling them not to shoot or not to score or anything,” Green said. “But we want to be patient because what was happening…we would break the press where we’d take a quick, jacked up shot and miss. Well, that’s as good as a turnover. Maybe we’ll get better at that as the year goes on, too.”
BHS senior Dacota Green led all scorers with 23 points. The head coach Green said he was pleased with her performance, as well as some other Bulldogs that contributed to the victory.
“My little point guard (Bryn Scott) always does her job defensively, handling the ball—she’s working,” he said. “Of course, Dacota, she’s our leading scorer and our veteran player and stuff like that. I thought Mackinley Hogan did a good job starting for us tonight. And once again, I thought our posts did a good job for us coming off the bench, scoring and giving us stuff like that. We just need a little bit more rebounding.”
Belgreen will travel to play Elkmont at Clements on Wednesday night before the Thanksgiving break. The Lady Bulldogs will then pick back up on December 3rd at home against Tharptown in their first area game of the season.
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