Lady Pioneers no match for Raiders

By ROB NUNLEY / Sports Editor for the Southern Standard

The Lady Pioneers’ Vanessa Cornelius (32) has her inside shot contested by Coffee County’s Jordan Brown during first-half action Tuesday night at Manchester. (Rob Nunley photo)

MANCHESTER — The Lady Pioneers’ seven-game winning streak came to an end Tuesday night with a tough 20-point loss to Coffee County.

Scoring at will in the post, the Lady Red Raiders rolled out to an early lead, building a 21-point advantage by halftime on the way to a 74-54 victory.

“We ran into a buzzsaw tonight,” said Lady Pioneer coach Ann Eades, “and I was very disappointed in our effort.

“I thought Manchester played well, but I thought we had a lot to do with that. We were our worst enemy tonight.”

Warren County, which dropped to 10-5 with the loss, fell behind 10-2 early in Tuesday’s contest, while Coffee County’s Amber Benjamin and Heather Grose connected for six first-quarter points each.

A 3-pointer from the Lady Pioneers’ Leanne Pelham brought WCHS back to a single-digit deficit at 19-10, but seven first-quarter turnovers prevented WCHS from building any offensive momentum. Back-to-back 3’s late in the quarter from Cassie Carden helped Manchester take a 27-15 lead by the end of the period.

Grose continued to find a clear path to the basket in the second quarter, posting nine points in the period as CCHS carried a 44-23 edge into intermission.

And although the Lady Pioneers out-scored their hosts 31-30 in the second half, Manchester’s early dominance — combined with 21 Lady Pioneer turnovers — were more than enough for the Red Raiders to ride out the final two periods and come away with the win.

“We don’t have a basketball team that can play poorly for three quarters then come back,” Eades said of her team’s early performance. “If we’d have played with half the effort early that we played with in the last half, we wouldn’t have put ourselves in that position.”

Grose led the way for the Lady Raiders with 25 points, while Benjamin posted 19 and Carden had 10. Audra Walker scored seven, Jenna Cossey had six, Krystal Gipson netted four and Jordan Brown had three.

Leanne Pelham finished with 25 for the Lady Pioneers, while Whitney Pelham had nine and Linsey Cornelius had six points. Katie Simpson scored four, Leah Cunningham and Amanda Locke had three each, and Jasmine Ware and Vanessa Cornelius each finished with two.

The Lady Pioneers return home tonight for a 6:30 tipoff against Franklin County.