RBS Opens Basketball Season

Red Boiling Springs opened their basketball season this past week.

The Red Boiling Springs Lady Bulldogs opened their 20-21 basketball season last Saturday against the visiting Van Buren County and the Lady Eagles used their size and quickness to spoil the Lady Bulldogs home opener 48-33 before a crowd of Lady Eagles fans that outnumbered the home team.
The Lady Eagles wasted little time jumping out to a first quarter lead of 19-6 and kept their full court defense on display and increased their lead to 33-13 by halftime. This was one of those games where the Lady Eagles played a great game using their size and speed and knocking down shots from three point range and scoring a lot of points by pulling down nine offensive rebounds in the first half which resulted 16 points in the paint.
The Lady Bulldogs Hayley McCarter made a couple of three pointers to account for the home team’s six first quarter points. Claire Fleming, Lindsey Randolph, and Liz Anderson accounted for the Lady Bulldogs seven point total in the second quarter. The Lady Bulldogs were forced into nine first half turnovers and shooting only 26% from the field hurt their chances against a really good Lady Eagles team that played nine kids in the first half and their bench scored seven points.
The second half saw first year Lady Bulldog coach Layce Colter go deep in her bench looking for a spark that never came. These Lady Bulldogs are very young and it will take some time and a lot of patience because most of these kids have never played together. A few stats from the game and the one most alarming was the 18 turnovers by the Lady Bulldogs and the Lady Eagles total of 27 rebounds to the 16 for the Lady Bulldogs.
Red Boiling Springs will hit the road on Monday night to face Mt. Juliet Christian and will travel to DeKalb County on Tuesday night November 23rd.
Individual scoring was: Claire Fleming six points, Lindsey Randolph three points, Bailey Massengille six points, Emma Woodcock three points, Hayley McCarter six points, Kennedy Marshall three points, and Liz Anderson 6 points.
The Westmoreland Eagles made the short trip over to the Dog Pound last Tuesday night and spoiled the Red Boiling Springs Bulldog season opener with a 68-32 victory.
Missed free throws and turnovers led to easy baskets for the Eagles as they jumped out to a first quarter lead of 18-12. The Bulldogs points in the quarter came on the three point shot as Colton Copas made three from long distance and Chris Hackney made one.
The Bulldogs had trouble handling the Eagles full court press and Westmoreland took advantage of their press by scoring eight unanswered points to open the second quarter. Midway thru the quarter the Eagles were up by a score of 29-16. The Bulldogs could have stayed close but going cold from the charity stripe (2 of 10) cost the Bulldogs of any chance of staying close to the Eagles. The Eagles led at the break 34-20.
Westmoreland started hot in the third quarter hitting six of their first seven shots and the lead of 21 points in the quarter put this game on ice. The Bulldogs had only two players make points in the third quarter as Chris Hackney had six points and Riley Thompson made a three pointer. The Bulldogs free throw shooting woes continued in the third quarter making only two of eight attemps.
Bulldog coach Andrew Mullinex started clearing his bench early in the fourth quarter as did the Eagles and some sloppy play by both teams was expected since many of these kids had never played not one minute of high school basketball. The Bulldogs had one basket in the fourth quarter and that basket was a three pointer by Aubry Link.
Bulldog fans were very quiet during the game knowing these kids are going to need some time to jell. They will get better with a lot of practice and getting their shooting touch down so those shots that were missed Tuesday will start to fall and the youth in these players will find some confidence.
Scoring totals for the Bulldogs: Colton Copas 14 points, Chris Hackney 12 points, Aubry Link 3 points, and Riley Thompson 3 points.

Everyone please remember to take your masks to all games.
Photos by Maddison Pippin