LEITCHFIELD - The middle school girls basketball team hosted the first ever Lady Cougar Jamboree, with games all day Thursday and Friday at Cougar Gym.

Grayson County played in the first two games on Thursday, with both the seventh and eighth grade teams playing Bowling Green. The Lady Purples won the seventh-grade game easily, 30-8, but Grayson County's eighth-graders scored six points in the final 34 seconds of their game to take a one-point, 28-27 win.

SEVENTH-GRADE GAME

This game showed that the Lady Cougar seventh-grade team has a lot of work to do before next season begins. Of course, they did not have much time to practice before they played these games, but a lack of ball-handling and shooting ability was evident.

Both teams started slowly, with only six points being scored in the first quarter. Getting a pair of layups by guard Diamond Marshall, the Lady Purples led 4-2 at the end of the period. Breanna Fulkerson scored the Lady Cougars' only basket.

A basket by Grayson County's Jessika Young tied the score at 4-4 at the 5:39 mark of the second period, but it was all Bowling Green after that. The Lady Purples scored 10 straight points to lead 14-4 at the 1:41 mark.

Taylor Higdon scored for the Lady Cougars with 1:24 remaining to halt the run, but the Lady Purples then scored the last six points of the period to lead 20-6 at the half.

Grayson County could manage only two points in the third quarter, then were held scoreless in the fourth as the Lady Purples cruised to the victory.

Marshall led all scorers with 16 points. Four Lady Cougars had two points each, Fulkerson, Young, Higdon and Kailea Gill.

EIGHTH-GRADE GAME

This team won the Green River Valley Conference championship last season as seventh graders and they may have thought they just needed to show up to win, but they were very lucky to come out on top in this one.

The Lady Purples got balanced scoring from seven different players and led for most of the game. Grayson County, on the other hand, got scoring from just two players. Both guard Kylee Gorby and center Halee Johnston finished with 14 points to account for all the Lady Cougar scoring. Johnston recorded a double-double in the game by pulling down 11 rebounds, while Gorby had six steals to lead the team.

The Lady Purples took a 6-2 lead at the 2:44 mark of the first period, but rebound baskets by Johnston, the last coming with 12 seconds left in the quarter, tied things up at 6-6 heading into the second period.

A six-foot jumper by Johnston with 1:59 left in the half was all the scoring the Lady Cougars could muster in the second quarter as Bowling Green took a 12-8 halftime lead.

Johnston scored on a layup opening the third period to cut the margin to two points, then hit a 15-footer wirth 3:40 left to tie things again at 12-12, but Bowling Green outscored them 8-2 the rest of the way to lead by six points, 20-14 heading into the final period of play.

Gorby went to work in the fourth quarter, when she scored 10 of her 14 points. A jumper just inside the three-point line brought Grayson County to within a point of the lead, 21-20 with 3:22 left to play.

A 6-2 Bowling Green run put the Lady Purples in front 27-22 with 1:59 left to play. Neither team could find the basket until Gorby hit a 15-footer with 33.8 seconds left to make it a 27-24 game and Grayson County called a timeout.

On the ensuing inbounds play, Grayson County forced a turnover and Gorby scored on a layup to make it a one-point game, 27-26 with a little over 14 seconds left and they called timout one last time.

Gorby then came up with a steal on the inbounds play and put the ball in the basket to give Grayson County the 27-26 lead with eight seconds left. The Lady Cougars then pressured Bowling Green into another turnover and they held the ball to record the win.

Three Bowling Green players, Kathryn Downing, Sarah Brooks and Amy Kovanda, scored six points each.

News-Gazette Sports Reporter

dbrown@gcnewsgazette.com