Blair Oaks girls use pressure defense to push past Fulton

Fulton's Carly FIsher looks to take a shot in the lane as Blair Oaks' Natalie Heckman defends during the second half of Monday night's game at Wardsville.
Fulton's Carly FIsher looks to take a shot in the lane as Blair Oaks' Natalie Heckman defends during the second half of Monday night's game at Wardsville.

WARDSVILLE - It was a good start for the Fulton Lady Hornets.

Kayanna Gaines knocked down a 3-pointer in the game's opening minute. Then Sydney Hedgpath followed with a basket from the lane.

But the Blair Oaks full-court pressure caught up with the Lady Hornets, as the Lady Falcons answered with a 10-0 run Monday and cruised to a 53-32 victory at Blair Oaks High School.

"The press definitely gave us fits tonight," Fulton coach Matt Wilbers said. "We had moments where things went really well. We ran our press-breaks the way we wanted to. When we ran them correctly, things worked out. But then we had moments where we started to get on our heels."

Mallorie Fick scored seven points during the 10-0 Blair Oaks run. She finished with a game-high 23 points, shooting 5-of-9 from 3-point range.

Fulton answered with a 3 from Kier Henderson and another 3 from Olivia Gowin on the right wing, cutting the deficit to 14-11 at the end of one quarter.

However, the Lady Hornets made just one field goal in the second quarter, while Blair Oaks stretched its lead to 27-16 by halftime.

Fulton held Blair Oaks without a point for the first 3:18 of the game, using its length on defense to slow down the Lady Falcons' pace.

"We've got Carly Fisher, who can play small forward or power forward for us at times," Wilbers said. "That allows us to start pretty big and be longer. We might look at playing a little more zone defense because of that length."

But Blair Oaks gained some momentum with its full-court pressure, which helped force a total of 26 turnovers.

"We had some careless mistakes tonight," Wilbers said. "We did the same thing against Monroe City on Friday night."

The Lady Falcons started the second half on a 7-0 run. Alex Trowbridge stopped the run as she beat the press for a layup with 5:09 to go in the third quarter.

Fulton trailed 40-24 by the end of the third, but Blair Oaks (1-0) began the fourth quarter on an 11-0 run, getting a trio of 3-pointers from Fick and a drive to the basket and layup from Bailey Rissmiller.

The Lady Falcons shot 37.5 percent from the floor (21-of-56), but they extended possessions with a handful of offensive rebounds.

"That falls back on me," Wilbers said. "We gave up too many offensive rebounds. We had some opportunities to get quality box-outs to get into position to be able to get the ball. We'll have to change some of the things we do in practice.

"Me being as tall as I am, I can step in and do a few things to mimic that to an extent."

Fulton ended the game on an 8-2 run in the final 2:17 to close the final margin to 21 points.

Henderson scored a 3-point play with :17 remaining in the game. That pushed her into double figures with a team-high 11 points, as she also made a 3 in the first quarter and shot 6-of-8 from the free-throw line.

Henderson, a freshman, also scored a team-high 12 points against Monroe City last Friday in her high school basketball debut.

"We've called on Kier Henderson as a freshman to do a lot," Wilbers said. "We lost Kiah Pittman - hopefully for not too much longer - to a possible knee injury at our Jamboree, so that elevated how much Kier has had to do for us."

Hedgpath finished with seven points for the Lady Hornets, while Fisher had six points and a game-high seven rebounds.

Fulton (0-2) will return to action Monday in the Montgomery County Tournament. The sixth-seeded Lady Hornets will face No. 3 Mexico in the first round at 7:30 p.m. in the high school gym.

"We're hoping to get that first win off our back and get ready for a competitive Montgomery County Tournament," Wilbers said.

Blair Oaks also won the JV game 58-9, as Emma Wolken scored 14 of her game-high 19 points in the third quarter for the Lady Falcons.

Samantha Hedgpath had a team-high four points for Fulton (0-2), while Aubrey Fleetwood had three points and Henderson scored two points.