With 50-, 30-point romps, Lady Ads 3-0
Jason Mayfield couldn’t have scripted things much better Saturday afternoon.
Mayfield, Farragut High School’s veteran girls basketball head coach, saw his team dismantle Clinton 73-23 in a Hall of Fame Game Nov. 17 at Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium.
Sure, it’s early in the season and the Lady Dragons were without a key player, but Mayfield saw the Lady Admirals do plenty well in a big victory helping them keep their perfect record intact.
The coach especially was pleased because FHS (3-0) put up a lethargic first-half performance earlier in the day, despite a 66-36 blowout victory over Grace Christian Academy.
“This was especially good for us because we were coming off a pretty poor performance at 10 o’clock this morning,” Mayfield said after his Lady Admirals stifled the Lady Dragons with a tenacious and swarming pressure defense and posted a potent and balanced offensive attack.
The Lady Admirals wasted little time putting away the Lady Dragons away. FHS opened a 24-6 lead by the end of the opening frame before shutting out Clinton in the second stanza.
Farragut outscored Clinton 28-0 in the second quarter.
Furthermore, Farragut manufactured all of its offense without having a single player post double figures in the scoring column before halftime.
“I was looking at the book at halftime and I saw that we put up 52 points, and not one of our players had scored in double figures yet,” Mayfield said. “That just shows you how we can score from anywhere on the floor.”
By game’s end, only junior Claire Wyatt and freshman Ace Strickland, a two-time Knox County Middle School Most Valuable Player, had scored in double figures.
Wyatt, a key returning post, scored 12 points while Strickland added 10.
Madison Hodge and Macy Barnes scored eight points each. Keeleigh Rogers and Sydney Chapman added seven points apiece. Morgan Carbaugh and Brooke Christian, both four-year starters for the Lady Ads, had five points each.
Hailey Johnson finished with four points while Lauren White had three. Gabi Duncan and McCall Willis scored two apiece.
Wyatt was pleased with the victory, but was far from satisfied.
“At halftime, we had given up six points, all on 3-pointers,” she said. “That showed that our press was working because we want to force teams to take those kinds of shots.
“But we have a lot to work on,” she added. “You could tell that we’d only been practicing for about 12 days.”
