By By Rocky Higginbotham/The Meridian Star
Dec. 10, 2000
The further West Lauderdale's girls get into the season, the more head coach Jody Hurst feels comfortable playing his younger kids.
And unfortunately for opponents, that also means the Lady Knights will have more depth.
Hurst got quality minutes from nine players Saturday night, when West coasted past Kemper County 65-48 to claim the round-robin championship of the West Lauderdale Invitational Tournament.
The Lady Knights are now 12-4 on the season, while Kemper County fell to 2-9.
The teams meet again Tuesday at DeKalb.
In Saturday's contest, West appeared sluggish in easing out to a 12-7 lead after one quarter.
In fact, Kemper County scored the first seven points of the second period to go up 14-12 before the Lady Knights cranked it up.
After Kemper's run, Hurst watched his team explode on a 16-1 spurt of its own on the way to a 34-20 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was more of the same, as Kemper got no closer than 11 points the rest of the way. Tamician Davis' two baskets had the Lady Wildcats within 42-31, but West reeled off seven straight points five from Kristina Gardner to open the lead up again.
Gardner finished with a game-high 18 points and also pulled down six rebounds for the Lady Knights, who got 16 points, 12 rebounds and four assists from J.J. Huggins.
Shannon Lloyd scored seven points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Lady Knights, who got six rebounds and four assists from Cierra Jennings. Jawanda Huggins pulled in 11 rebounds and scored five points and Julie McCrory scored six points and handed out four assists.
Kemper County was led by Davis, who scored 16 points and yanked down nine rebounds. Monique Mosley scored 11 points, had six rebounds, three assists and three steals and Brooke Hudson had a team-high 10 rebounds and six points.
Candra McCoy added seven boards and a pair of blocked shots for the Lady Cats, while Stephanie Nicholson had six boards.