RBS Lady Bulldogs Open Season with Win
By Wally Etheridge
The Red Boiling Springs Lady Bulldogs opened the 2011-2012 Basketball season on a high note winning over the Middle Tennessee Heat 60-36 at the Dog Pound in Red Boiling Springs last Tuesday night.
The Lady Bulldogs used their full court pressure defense to speed up the game and force numerous turnovers by the Heat. Most of those turnovers resulted in easy baskets for the Lady Bulldogs.
Lady Bulldog Morgan Burgener was the catalyst for the defense in knocking down 13 first-half points as well as taking care of the rebounding with 8 in the first half. The Lady Bulldogs would also get great team defense as Katie Hix along with starters Kelsey Jenkins and Ashlyn Murphy pounded the boards while Mayson Burgener scored 6 points and had 3 steals for the first half. All five starters scored for the Lady Bulldogs in the first half.
The Lady Bulldogs led this game at halftime 33-19. Kelsey Jenkins had 3 points in the first half while the ninth grader Kaitlyn Mccarter scored 4 points.
The Middle Tennessee Heat are a home-schooled team and they start 3 sisters. The heat do not have a gym to call home so they use Rec Centers to practice and play some games in. These young ladies are well coached and they play a good game of basketball.
The second half of this game was much like the first half as Coach White went to his bench to keep fresh legs in the game. The Lady Bulldogs knew that they had another game later that evening to play and Coach White removed the press early in the fourth quarter.
The Heat would not close the gap in the second half as the Lady Bulldogs took home a hard fought win by a final score of 60-36. Lady Bulldog scoring for the game-Morgan Burgener 24 points-Mayson Burgener 9 points-Kelsey Jenkins 8 points-Kaitlyn McCarter 9 points-Katie Hix 6 points-Conner Murphy 3 points-Ashlyn Murphy 1 point.
The Lady Bulldogs would play their second game of the evening taking on the Lady Tigerettes from Murfreesboro Central and they would take home a hard fought win in a low scoring game 40-34.
The Red Boiling Springs Lady Bulldogs were in no mood to let the Lady Tigerettes dictate the pace of this game but they had no choice. The slow pace would be a test because the girls from Murfreesboro put a zone defense in for this game and it almost worked. The shooting touch for both teams was off so baskets in this game would be at a premium. The slow pace resulted in a low scoring game in the first half and the Lady Tigerettes would lead at halftime 22-21.
Morgan Burgener led the Lady Bulldogs in scoring for the first half with 7 points. Katie Hix had 6 points while Mayson Burgener had 5 points and Kelsey Jenkins made 3 points.
Floor mistakes and poor shooting resulted in the second half looking just like the first half. Not very many points were going to be scored in this game and that is when the Lady Bulldogs decided that the defense needed to be turned up a notch even above what they had been playing. The Lady Bulldogs defense would hold the Lady Tigerettes to 12-second half points while their offense finally came alive to put 19 points on the scoreboard. This game is what you call winning ugly and the Lady Bulldogs used their home crowd and some excellant free throw shooting to pull away in the closing 3 minutes. Final scoring totals for the Lady Bulldogs-Morgan Burgener 22 points followed by Katie Hix with 8 points and Kelsey Jenkins and Mayson Burgener scored 5 points each.
Lady Bulldog Coach Larry White was happy with the win and had high praise for the Tigerettes and their game plan. Those girls played a great game. Red Boiling Springs will now go on the road to play the Webb School on Saturday. They will also play Huntland high school on Saturday at the Webb School.
