Lady Tigers steamroll Greene County with 30-0 third quarter
Demopolis turned to its press in the second half Thursday night an cruised to a 64-20 Senior Night win over Greene County.
“Rhythm. We’re at our best when we play in rhythm. When we play down to the other team’s level, it just throws us out of whack offensively and defensively,” Demopolis coach Tony Pittman said of the team’s success during a 30-0 third quarter.
The Lady Tigers ran a quintet of young reserves in the fourth quarter before inserting seniors Ivery Moore, DeeDee White, Erica Bennett and Courtney Hill for a curtain call for their final regular season home game.
“Words can’t express. They’ve played four years. They’ve seen the good and the bad of this program and stuck with it,” Pittman said of the foursome that has helped guide the Lady Tigers to a 20-2 mark despite the team having lost two key players to ACL tears this season. “They’ve stayed focused and they made a promise to each other that this would be the year for them and, so far, we’re doing well.”
Demopolis took a 15-9 lead after one quarter of play but opened the advantage considerably in the second quarter to take a 34-18 mark into halftime. When the third quarter started, the outside shooting of Hill, White and Bennett turned into a pickpocketing exhibition that led to easy layups in transition and, ultimately, the breaking of the Greene County spirits.
“We’ve got to have all of them playing at the top level. Tonight it was Courtney and Erica’s night. It was really good to see Erica have a good ball game. She has been kind of sluggish the last couple of ball games. It was great to see her shoot the ball well tonight as well as play defense and hit some easy shots,” Pittman said.
Bennett set the pace for Demopolis with 26 points, eight steals and three assists. Hill added 15 points and four steals while White had eight points, three rebound, five assists and six steals. Darnesha Harris contributed nine points, nine rebounds and two steals in the effort.
In addition to getting a strong showing from his upperclassmen, Pittman got significant run out of bench players that will be needed if the Lady Tigers are to push through their postseason goals.
“Samantha Williams played big minutes for me tonight. She rebounded the ball well and played great defense,” Pittman said. “Kerra Means and also Keyjana Waller, they played big minutes for us tonight.”
Demopolis gets its final regular season contest Friday when it travels to Selma before hosting the area tournament Monday.
“I need to see some consistency. We talked about after the last loss we had, taking steps,” Pittman said. “Now is the time for us to start progressing and getting better each night we step onto the court. We’ve done well in two steps, so we’ll take another big step (Friday) night.”
Demopolis is set to host Dallas County in the first round of the area tournament Monday.