The Shelbyville Central Golden Eaglettes dropped another home district contest on Friday night, 51-36, to the Lincoln County Lady Falcons.
Yet again, the theme of the night was offensive struggles, as Lincoln County defensively seemingly had an answer for everything Shelbyville threw at them.
The Eaglettes were held to 16 points in the second half, as a 10-point halftime deficit turned into a 15-point defeat.
Paige Blackburn led Shelbyville with 10 points. Lily Brown, Sammie Brown, and Lanaya Young scored eight points apiece, but the home side just could not string together enough offensive baskets to have a chance.
Lincoln County was led by a game-high 24 points from Abby Bryan, including 14 points in the second half. She was the only scorer to reach double-figures for the Lady Falcons, but she found just enough scoring help in Alyssa Petty and Molly Brown , who ended with nine and eight points respectively.
The Eaglettes started out good enough offensively, putting in 11 points in the first quarter to trail by only three, 14-11, but that would be their highest scoring quarter of the contest.
Bryan would begin to take over in the second quarter after she was held scoreless in the first, putting up nine points to help lead her team into halftime with a 30-20 lead. Shelbyville was held to 3/10 shooting in the period, scoring only nine points as a team.
In the second half, Bryan would completely put her Lady Falcons’ squad on her back, scoring eight of her team’s 11 points in the third quarter to give the visitors a commanding 41-26 lead going into the final frame. Shelbyville was limited to only six shot attempts, connecting on just two of them in a six-point third quarter.
As the game moved into the fourth quarter, Lincoln County put the finishing touches on an important road district win. Bryan would score seven of her team’s 10 points in the quarter to match 10 points from the home side, and the Lady Falcons would hold on to win comfortably, 51-36.
Lincoln County now sits at 20-6 (7-1) and second in District 9-AAAA, after suffering their first loss in district play at home against Coffee County, 56-50, on Saturday. They are scheduled for a rematch in Manchester on Tuesday.
Shelbyville Central falls to 13-9 (2-5) after some difficult and close district losses recently. There is still time to turn things around before the district tournament begins next week, starting with a home matchup against Columbia Central on Monday in the first game of a back-to-back, LIVE on WLIJ 98.7 and AM 1580 starting at 5:45 p.m.
