Lady Tigers overcome slow start to defeat Jackson

The McClain girls varsity basketball team won their fifth straight game and improved their overall record to 6-1 on the season after defeating Frontier Athletic Conference foe Jackson 44-20 Wednesday night in Greenfield.

It wasn’t a pretty game by either team for sure, and the Lady Tigers found themselves trailing 6-5 after the first period was over.

“We definitely didn’t come out ready to play tonight, especially in the first quarter when we only scored five points, and that’s not like us,” McClain head coach Shania Massie said after the game. “That’s what can happen when you have kids sick and some with injuries, and it forces you to make some adjustments to work through it because you’re always going to have some adversity when things aren’t going good.”

The strategy seemed to work because in the second quarter McClain picked up the intensity on both ends of the floor and outscored the Ironladies 18-6 and took a 23-12 lead into the locker room.

A big reason for the offensive turnaround was the play of point guard Paisley Pryor, who lit up the nets, scoring 15 points after being limited to two points in the opening frame.

“Even though we started slow, I felt like we really started executing better after the first quarter ended,” Massie said. “Thankfully, Paisley (Pryor) made some nice adjustments after scoring just two points in the first period and got the ball rolling for us.”

Turnovers really plagued the Lady Tigers in the first half when they had double-digit miscues, due mainly to Jackson’s full-court pressure.

“Jackson is a well-coached team that always plays hard, and they came out ready to play,” Massie said. “Their press gave us some trouble early, but once we figured it out, we were able to execute and play better.”

McClain came out in the second half with a little full-court pressure of their own that forced Jackson into numerous turnovers that resulted into easy baskets. The Lady Tigers outscored Jackson 21-8 in the second half to win a fourth straight game by double figures.

“I thought we were a little laidback on defense at the start, but then we started to press a little bit and really picked up our intensity on defense, forcing them to turn the ball over,” Massie said. “I’m not happy with how we played tonight, but with all the adversity, I thought we still played OK.

“I thought a lot of our younger kids came into the game and did their job and played pretty well. Kenzie West really gave those younger girls a spark, and I thought she played very well tonight too.

“We’ve got some really tough games ahead of us, and there’s a lot of things we still need to improve on but I’m pretty happy with our 6-1 start,” Massie continued.

Pryor was the game’s leading scorer with 23 points, followed by Larah Henson, who also played a solid game on both ends of the floor and scored 12 points. Rounding out the scoring for McClain were Brylee Douglas 4, Brie Cummins 3 and McKenzie West 2.

Lillian Mapes led Jackson with a team-high 11 points.

McClain improves to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in the FAC and will next play at Adena on Monday, Dec. 15, then return home on Wednesday, Dec. 17 when they will host FAC foe Miami Trace.