Early test: Lady Trojans pull away from Eufaula
Published 10:34 pm Friday, November 30, 2018
It was a tale of two halves during the Lady Trojans’ 59-27 win over rival Eufaula on Friday evening in Troy.
Charles Henderson outscored the Tigers 34-8 in the second half en-route to a comfortable win over their rivals.
“It’s always great and fun to play Eufaula,” said head coach Dyneshia Jones. “The potential is there, it was a great game.”
The Trojans had to play without one of their senior leaders in Maori Davenport, in arguably one of their biggest games of the year thus far.
“We are going through some things with her right now,” Jones said. “I hope she can get back on the court soon. Regardless, we are going to continue to fight and support Maori all the way through the process.”
The rest of her teammates responded, in particular, fellow senior Tatyana Siler and Samira Moore.
“They responded well,” Jones said. “We stayed hungry and we are always up for competition, knowing we are facing a good team. They responded well.”
Siler finished the game with 16 points, while Moore had 15.
The game remained tight in the first half. The Tigers held the early advantage in the opening quarter, outscoring the Trojans 13-11 heading into the second.
Trailing by three early in the second, the Trojans embarked on a 10-0 run to take a seven-point lead at 24-17. The Trojans outscored the Tigers 20-6 in the second quarter and took a 31-19 lead into halftime.
The Trojans went on a lengthy 14-0 run that started in the third quarter and ended in the fourth. In all, the Trojan defense held the Tigers to just two fourth quarter points.
“We were being smarter,” Jones said. “We were going down and shooting the ball and not getting back on defense. We were tiring ourselves out.”
The Trojans and Tigers have a knack of meeting one another in the postseason. Jones hopes this win early in the season will bring some momentum if the two teams meet later in the tournament.
“Getting a win is great, but seeing them fight the way they did tonight, there will always be momentum from that,” Jones said.
The Trojans will be back in action on December 4 when they host Enterprise.