Solid defense lifts

WHS over Rockets
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

When Watauga’s girls’ basketball team fell to A.C. Reynolds earlier in the season, Rockets guard Karlee Taylor scored 29 points. It was a different story when Watauga beat Northwestern 4-A Conference rival A.C. Reynolds 58-45 at Lentz-Eggers Gym Friday night.

The Pio-neers held Taylor to 13 points, which was still three more points than any of the Wat-auga players scored. However, a balanced Watauga offense, which had four players scoring at least eight points, was enough to beat the Rockets.

Emily Pineda led the Pioneers (9-12, 2-8 NWC) in scoring with 10 points, while Nicole Tesh scored nine.

Point guards Chandler Butler and Sarah Caldwell each added eight. Watauga coach Klay Anderson went back to a substitution pattern of platooning five players at a time, which seemed to work once the second half rolled around. Watauga, trailing 20-19 at halftime, outscored the Rockets 39-25 in the second half.

“Offensively, we wanted to set the tempo,” Pioneers coach Klay Anderson said. “When you’re playing a team that plays eight players, and you keep running and gunning, you’re going to wear them down.”

Whitley Brinkley, A.C. Reynolds center, led the Rockets (11-8, 5-6) with 19 points. Taylor managed to hit three 3-point buckets, but did not dominate the game like she did the first time the teams played on Jan. 11 in Asheville.

“We had a team of 11 basically playing against a team of two,” Anderson said. “The fact of the matter is Taylor and Brinkley are their two scorers. They make them go. We did an outstanding job of making them work for everything they got.”

It also helped the Pioneers to make their foul shots. Watauga hit 19-of-26 from the free throw line, compared to the Rockets making 2-of-5. Watauga was called for just nine fouls, while Reynolds was whistled for 19.

Watauga trailed for the last time in the third quarter when Lopez converted an old-fashioned three-point play to give the Rockets a 27-26 advantage. The Pioneers got the lead back with an Pineda basket off a Christina Rees assist and never gave it back.

The Pioneers led 37-33 heading into the fourth quarter and led 48-45 midway through the period until closing out the game with a 10-0 run. Tesh started it with a basket off an assist from Ashlyn Baird, and Caldwell added a basket to get the Pioneers started.

Katherine Mayhew added a foul shot, and Butler hit four straight, the second two giving the Pioneers a 57-45 lead with 39.3 seconds left. A Rees foul shot with 25.9 left helped ice the game.

Reynolds did not help themselves by failing to score on its final seven possessions.

Watauga, which snapped a three-game losing streak, hosts East Burke Friday night.