Cougar girls hammer Danville; host Salem in region 2nd round Tuesday

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Maddie Ratcliff is honored at halftime for reaching the 1,000 points scored plateau. (Brian Bishop/PC Patriot)
 Usually when the region playoffs get underway to wins come harder, but not Friday night at Pulaski County High School. The Cougar girls basketball team dropped the hammer big time on GW-Danville, 62-28 in the quarter finals of the Class 4,Region D Tournament. The Cougars move to 17-6 on the season, GW dropped to 6-18.
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Keslyn Secrist scores on a driiving layup. She led the Cougars in scoring with 12. (Brian Bishop/PC Patriot)

Pulaski County, second seeded in the region, will be at home in the semi final round again next Tuesday and host Salem who knocked off third seeded Halifax on the road in overtime. The Spartans are now 11-12 on the season.

     “It was nice to get off to a good start,” said PCHS coach Brad Sutphin. “But we just take it one game at a time, do not look out front, take care of the business in front of you, and the girls did that tonight. We obviously would like to make a run back to the state tournament and right now to do that you must win. We got one,”smiled Sutphin.
    Pulaski Co. took control of the game from the outset and led 10-0 in the first quarter before Danville got on the board. After the initial eight-minute quarter the Cougars led, 18-5.
     It ballooned rapidly in the second quarter. The Cougars outscored Danville 21-8 in the quarter and led, 39-13 at the half.  Danville turned the ball over 16 times the first half and 24 times for the game. The Cougars were 16 of 33 from the field while the Eagles could hit just five of 23 shots the first half.
     Every player saw action for Pulaski Co. The score was 51-23 at the end of the third quarter and early in the fourth the game went to a continuous clock after the Cougars soared ahead by 30.
    Danville managed to connect on just seven of 35 shots, 20% from the field. Nyasua Lanier led the Eagles with 14 points, but she made only five of 17 shots. Curtasja Brooks scored seven.
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Erin Russell scored nine points and had an excellent floor game for the Cougars. (Brian Bishop/PC Patriot)

Pulaski Co. hit 27 of 59 shots from the field, 46%. It was a balanced effort with nine players in the scoring column. Keslyn Secrist led the way with 12 points on six of nine marksmanship. Ally Fleenor hit five of six for 10. Erin Russell was four of nine and scored nine points, Taryn Blankenship was three of six and scored nine, Paige Huff was three of nine for seven, Maddie Ratcliff was three of eight for six, and Alaina Akers two of six for five. Courtney Cregger and Hanna Walson both scored two for the Cougars.

The Pulaski County basketball program recognized Ratcliff before the game for eclipsing the 1,000 points scored mark in her career.

By DAN CALLAHAN, The Patriot
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