Last season Webster County and Bowling Green found great success by capturing the region title in the Second and Fourth Region, respectively.
The Lady Trojans and Lady Purples will both be put to the test early this season as Bowling Green travels to face the Lady Trojans in Dixon on Tuesday night. Webster County opened the season on Monday night with a 76-44 pounding of Bosse High School (Evansville, Ind.).
“It’s going to be tough,” Bowling Green head coach Calvin Head said. “Coach (Brandon) Fisher has done an outstanding job over there. Since he’s taken over they’ve really taken over the Second Region. We were talking the other day about how tough our schedule is. We start out by going to Webster County—out-of-region. They are projected to win their region again, so it’s going to be really tough.”
Webster County is fresh off its first Second Region title since 1998, but the Lady Trojans graduated their primary post players in Jessica Winders (12.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG) and Jamie Winstead (8.3 PPG, 6.1 RPG). Guards Karlie Keeney (10.9 PPG) and Marissa Austin (10.0 PPG) return this season for Webster County, and freshman and Union County transfer Raigan Price (7.8 PPG, 7.3 RPG) will look to fill the void in the post.
The Lady Trojans are most-known for their stifling defense, which is one of the core elements of Coach Brandon Fisher’s coaching philosophy. Webster County was sixth in the state in defense last year by yielding just 39.6 points per game, and the Lady Trojans held Christian County scoreless for over 11 minutes in the Second Region title game.
But Webster County still has a formidable challenge in Bowling Green, who defeated the Lady Trojans 77-67 last season.
“Very athletic team that is going to press you and try to make it an up-tempo game,” said Fisher of Bowling Green. “It will be an up and down pace game, and I think we’ll have to really guard and limit them to one shot and take care of the ball and not turn it over against the pressure.”
The Lady Purples did lose a large part of their scoring in current Lipscomb University player Keely Morrow (22.6 PPG), who went off for 34 points in the meeting against Webster County in Bowling Green this past January.
Bowling Green will return every other player this season, most notably Taylor Ragland (11.7 PPG, 4.6 RPG), and the Lady Purples will look to continue their dominance of the Second Region as Bowling Green won all three meetings against Second Region foes last season and the Lady Purples have won 10 out of their last 12 against Second Region competition since the 2013-14 season.
NOTE: This article was initially published in The Journal-Enterprise (Providence, KY)
