SK PIONEER SPORTS: Welcome to the Elite Eight Lady Pioneers

The Lady Pioneers won the first state tournament game in the program’s history by a final score of 46-37 over the Breathitt County Ladycats. It was a tough game as Breathitt had a huge size advantage over SK. The Lady Pioneers came out and looked a little tight; maybe not as tight as they did in the Big Show last year but definitely not the as loose as they needed to be. Lyndsay Figgins and Kayla Smith carried the scoring load in the first half as they had 12 of the team’s 16 points. Leading scorer Chelsea Tolliver struggled in the first half as she connected on just one out of 10 shots. The girls had trouble inside and outside but the defense played the way it needed to in order to keep things close. SK led at the intermission by a score of 16-15. Although SK was leading, it didn’t feel like it as the girls really struggled.

SK came out in the second and seemingly kept their defense going with the same intensity that they normally display. The only problem was, the referees didn’t see it the same way. Kayla Smith and Aly Ponzer picked up their 4th fouls in the third quarter and had to become spectators for quite a bit of the period. Catilyn Figgins surprised us by getting a couple of minutes on the Diddle Floor in the third quarter. What a roller coaster she has been on since last Friday when it was feared she tore a cruciate ligament. Chelsea Tolliver became SK’ all time leading scorer in the 3rd quarter surpassing the previous mark held by Jeff Krohman.

SK got things figured out in the 4th as they kind of had the look on their face that they were tired of messing around. The Lady Pioneers showed some of the offensive punch we have seen lately as they finished the game on an 11-0 run and outscored Breathitt 20-9 in the period. Sydni Wainscott hit two ice water threes in the closing minutes. Chelsea got on track to finish with 17 points (15 in the second half) and showed everyone the scorer she is. Lyndsay finished with 9 points and also grabbed 7 rebounds. For the game, the team shot 15 for 53 yet they still managed to pull out the win. The game was ugly but if you have seen enough SK games, that's the way they go sometimes.

The non-game story had to be the SK Pep bus breaking down around Louisville. This made the SK crowd very sparse. The ironic thing about this, in our hotel, there is a whole fleet of buses that say Pioneer Travel on them.

The Casey County team that the Pioneers will face on Friday had what seemed like half the arena tonight since they are only 90 minutes away. I hope that the Independence and Southern Kenton County will come down and support the Lady Pioneers. If you are reading this invite your neighbor to come down. The girls play on Friday at 2:30 Eastern Time against Casey County. We watched Casey County tonight and they look very strong.

What an awesome place for the girls to compete.

Lyndsay jumps in the passing lane for a first half steal.

More defense from Kayla Smith. A very good game from Kayla with several rebounds despite some ticky tacks thrown at her.

Chelsea did a nice job on Noble as the Lady Cat leading scorer was held to one field goal.

Coach Stowers was busy on the sidelines tonight. I am not a big blame the referee kind of basketball fan but WOW, I am not sure what was going on tonight.