The old saying is “defense wins championships”.
Well Barren County may not have won a title on Tuesday night against defending Fourth Region champion Russell County, but the Trojanettes still put on a defensive showcase.
The Trojanettes opened up the game with a full-court press to score the first seven points, and Barren County simply stymied the Lady Laker offense in a 45-27 win that was the Trojanettes’ 20th victory of the season—marking the second consecutive 20-win season for Barren County.
“I continue to think that our girls just buy in,” Barren County head coach Piper Lindsey said. “They know what they have to do, and they understood that [Addison] Loy can get streaky—which she did. I thought Mallory [Pedigo] did a heck of a job on her. I thought McKenzie [England] did a great job on [LaShaya] Carman. We wanted to limit her touches and we did. I feel like everybody stepped up, took care of business and did exactly what we needed to do to hold them to that amount.”
The one-two punch of Mallory and Bailey Pedigo led the Trojanettes offensively in the win, scoring 11 and 18 points, respectively.
Bailey tied for tops in assists with three and finished second on the team with four rebounds while Mallory tallied five of the Trojanettes’ 11 steals in the victory.
“They do a lot of little things for us—some that don’t even show up on the stat sheet,” Lindsey said. “We got to continue to have them in the game for us.”
The Trojanettes (20-6) led 12-7 at the end of the first quarter before limiting Russell County to just two points in the second quarter—a basket by Jaylen Elmore at the 3:01 mark—to take a 20-9 lead into the locker room.
Barren County extended its lead to 33-16 with 2:38 remaining in the third quarter on a three-point play by Bailey Pedigo, and the Trojanettes remained in steady control the rest of the way to record the victory.
“I thought we turned them over early, which was a positive, and we just never looked back” Lindsey said. “I told them we didn’t want to go on cruise control: we wanted to keep on going.”
Eve Jackson added five points for Barren County in the win while Karleigh Delk and England chipped in four apiece. The pair also hauled down four and five rebounds, respectively, in the win.
Russell County (20-5) was led in the loss by Loy with 10 points and seven rebounds while Jaylen Elmore added eight points.
The Lady Lakers will look to return to the winning path with a home game against Adair County on Friday evening.
Barren County will continue its strand of four straight games against 16th District competition on Friday night, travelling to Cumberland County to take on the Lady Panthers as the Trojanettes have just three regular season games remaining before the 15th District tournament.
“I feel like we’re coming together at the right time,” Lindsey said. “We’re playing for one another, and we’re extremely unselfish. They don’t care who gets the glory, and I think that’s a unique positive characteristic for us.”
