It’s been a tough season for the varsity Lady Pioneers, but help seems to be on the way.
The freshman Lady Pioneers won for the third time this season Monday, dominating Coffee County 75-47. Brienne Kelsey led the way with 24 points, while Kyra Perkins finished with 17.
“The girls have worked hard this year and have developed well in areas that we were weak in earlier in the year,” said freshman girls coach Brent Warren. “We still have a lot of work to do, but (against Coffee County) we played the same no matter what the score was. That is something we have preached to them all year.”
A confluence of issues have kept the Lady Pioneers off the court a lot this winter, but the freshman girls have been pretty good when they get to suit up. Warren County is now 3-2 this year, having wins over a few programs that have handed the varsity team big losses.
Coffee County is one such program, but its domination of the border battle didn’t trickle down to the freshman level. Perkins and Kelsey made sure of that early.
Perkins came out the gate on fire, outscoring Coffee County on her own 13-8 in the first period. The Lady Raiders had no answers for Perkins, who blew by defenders with a quick first step, rose over Coffee County shot blockers for layups and got out in transition for easy buckets.
When Perkins wasn’t slicing and dicing the Lady Raider defense, Kelsey was raining fire from deep.
The lefty didn’t seem to have any issues with her vision despite sporting a black eye from an errant elbow she took last week in a JV game. Kelsey drained three early triples, pushing Warren County up 26-8 after the first quarter.
Emeri Cummings took control in the second and third quarters, working in the paint for easy buckets as Coffee County’s defense focused on Warren County’s dynamic guards. Cummings scored 11 points, 10 coming in the middle quarters, as the Lady Pioneer lead swelled to 56-28 by the end to of the third.
Kelsey made sure to add the exclamation point late, draining her seventh triple to push the lead over 30 in the final quarter.
It was exactly how Warren wanted to see the Lady Pioneers finish.
“This game was a great example of how we want to start and finish games. We have girls becoming the players we knew they could be,” said Warren.
Mia Hobbs and Savannah Winfree finished with seven points apiece in the victory, followed by Addison Johnson with four and Marcie Pope with two.
Warren County will be back in action Thursday night at home against Franklin County. Action is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
