Cougar girls win ’em all in River Ridge

The Pulaski County girls basketball team ran the table Thursday evening at Salem with a big, 70-52 victory. The Lady Cougars finished the regular season with a spotless 12-0 record in the River Ridge District and top seed going into Saturday’s district tournament at Patrick Henry in Roanoke. The Cougars will first face Blacksburg at 5 pm.

     The overall record on the season for PCHS was 17-7. Salem finished 5-7 and 10-12 overall. “I’m so proud of our girls,” said Cougar head coach Brad Sutphin. “To go 12-0 in our district is no small task. The kids have continually gotten better. A lot of teams have to put the gear away this week, and we’re very appreciative that we’re still playing. We have much to look forward to. Everything now starts to count just a bit more. We’ve got the district tournament which is going to be a challenge, and then we host the first round of the region next week. It is the most exciting time of the season,” said Sutphin.

    Maddie Ratcliff with 17 and Keslyn Secrist with a dozen points led the Cougars at Salem. The team led 16-6 after one quarter, and 30-19 at the half, but put the game away in the third, leading 53-37 going into the fourth quarter. This time 10 players hit the scoring column for PCHS with Hannah Walson scoring eight, Ally Fleenor, Alaina Akers, Taryn Blankenship, and Paige Huff all got six, Erin Russell five, Courtney Cregger and Kassidy Secrist both got a bucket.

     Kennedy Scales got a game high 25 points for the Spartans, but that was almost half her team’s production, and Salem did not get the balanced effort from its team like Pulaski County.