The Forsyth Lady Panthers defeated the Sparta Lady Trojans, 62-56, on Monday night. It was a lethargic affair in which both teams suffered from the Christmas break layover. There were mental mistakes and unforced errors that caused neither team to ever take a commanding lead.
Forsyth took the lead in the first quarter and would not relinquish it again until the second half. At halftime, Forsyth led 26-23 but would soon lose that lead in the third quarter when Sparta junior Katelyn Driggers started knocking down the outside shot. Sparta held the lead briefly but Forsyth would regain the lead going into the fourth quarter, 41-37.
The Lady Panthers opened up the biggest lead of the night when, with 6:30 left in the game, they led 45-37. Sparta answered quickly by pressing full-court and, in less than a minute, reduced the deficit to just two, 45-43, forcing Forsyth’s coach Mandy Rogers to call a timeout.
“We wanted to get the ball inside,” said Rogers. “Peyton Gillman did a really nice job of getting it crashed in there and finished. Maycee (Lumley) dominated down the stretch and Lacey (Moore) did a good job of taking care of things. You never know what could happen there in those situations. You definitely don’t want to become complacent. Some teams will play to win and some teams will play not to lose. We played to win in that stretch and that was huge.”
After the timeout, Forsyth scored the next four points to put the lead back at 49-43. Sparta continued to fight but could not tie the game.
“We made a lot of mental mistakes, a lot of physical mistakes,” said Sparta coach Mike Percival. “We put ourselves behind the eight-ball quite a bit and couldn’t seem to get out of the hole. In the fourth quarter, some of that was them making good plays and some of that was us just losing focus. We had two turnovers that were very costly. We will keep coming to practice, keep working, and hopefully eventually we will get that focus. Tonight we didn’t zero in on what we needed to get done.”
Forsyth would go on to win the game despite missing five free throws in the fourth quarter. Leading the way for the Lady Panthers was junior Maycee Lumley with 20.
“We definitely came out flat, but we recovered,” said Lumley. “You try not to let it get into your head, you keep playing to your ability. I try to lead my team and there aren’t a lot of us with varsity experience. When Sparta pressured us I tried to calm the team down and told them don’t rush things. Don’t let the other team get into their game, you have to stay in your game.”
“It was a tough battle and I knew that it would be,” said Rogers. “Sparta is a good team, they are young and they have quick guards. They are super-active defensively and we let that get to us a couple times. I didn’t think we were very fresh coming off Christmas break. Maybe that’s normal, I don’t know, but I thought our kids battled. Neither of these teams has a lot of size but we did talk to our kids about getting inside. We did a good job of getting the ball inside to our post players. If we would have been complacent and stopped attacking the rim, a team like tonight would have come back and beat us, for sure. I anticipate the next few games to be a lot like this one; we are going to have to play well.”
Sparta 13 10 14 19 -56
Forsyth 14 12 15 21 -62
Sparta—Katelyn Driggers-19, Brooklyn Driggers-19, Liz Yeager-8, Breann Anderson-7, Tiffany Lafferty-3
Forsyth—Kileigh Michel-3, Maycee Lumley-20, Lacey Moore-14, Brooklyne Romine-3, Peyton Gillman-10, Ashton Davidson-12
