Sports
Tolson And Beha Lead Federal Hocking Over South Gallia For Sectional Title
By: Rebekah Markovitz
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The Federal Hocking Lady Lancers are Sectional Champions for the second year in a row. They defeated South Gallia 40-27 and celebrated their win by taking turns cutting out pieces of the net.
The Lady Lancers had won against South Gallia twice in the regular season. They knew what they were up against and practiced in the days leading up to the game accordingly.
Their practice paid off. They took the lead early in the first quarter, and kept the lead the entire game.
It was their defense that helped them take home the championship. They put the Rebel’s offense under tight pressure, forcing them to have sloppy passes resulting in turnovers.
They had around 25 turnovers during the game, 12 of which the Lady Lancers capitalized on in steals. Paige Tolson was quick on her feet and had five of those steals.
South Gallia was forced to take shots from the outside as the Lady Lancer’s defense made it difficult to get in the paint.
In the first half, the Lady Rebels were also held back from shooting due to technical mistakes such as traveling. When they did shoot, they were not able to finish nor were they able to get the rebound as much as they needed to.
Coach Corey Small told the girls multiple times to get the rebounds, especially because Emma Beha was dominating in them. The defense did well cutting off and getting in the middle of the Lady Lancer’s passes, but many times they were only able to get a tip on the ball and it would go out of bounds.
Federal Hocking was leading 22-8 at halftime, but the Lady Rebels were a new team coming out of the locker room for the second half.
They had a new found energy and came out with a mission to come back from the 14 point detriment. They picked up the offensive pace and were more aggressive in the paint to get the basket.
This caught the Lady Lancers off-guard at first and they needed to slow their game down. They ran into foul trouble, and Hannah Dunfee had to sit out a lot of the game.
South Gallia gained scoring opportunities through these fouls, and were getting beat on getting back on some rotation plays. However, once the Lady Lancers gained composure, they were able to match and one-up South Gallia’s fast-paced play.
The Lady Lancer’s look to continue their strong defense in their future games and to improve their offense.
According to Coach Tolson, they were only about 20% on their shots. However, the Lady Lancers did what they did best, and the freshman of the team put up the points to make the win happen.
Tolson lead in points with 14 followed by Beha with 13 and Kylie Tabler with 7.
South Gallia’s playoff run ended, but Federal Hocking will move on to the next round to play Peebles on February 24th at Jackson High School.