In our first game of the season, we played the Lady Eagles of Rosehill Christian. RCS always has a tough team and we knew this would be a good look for us early in the year.  Our team is made up of 11 girls this year (much better than 8 on the roster from last season).  We’re led by our 2 seniors, Brittany Flowers and Edima Essien. We have 3 juniors on the roster, but only one (Ashlyn Templeton) played last year. Our new juniors are Taryn Eubanks and Motun Babatunde. Our 2 sophomores, Ali Knudson and Madison Flowers, who returned from last season, both started in the game last night.  And to complete our roster we have 4 freshmen this year that I’m extremely excited about being on the team as well. They all played last year for Mrs. Lemm on the middle school team; Gabbie Fontana, Sydney Greer, Arnelle Pender and Melody Townsend. Senior trainer / player Sarah Steele is back as our trainer along with freshman Hanson Larson. This team, although we’ve only had 5 practices, has shown great potential and I’m looking forward to seeing the progress they’re going to make this year. The entire team is very coachable and they’re willing to learn.

Rosehill came out quick and outscored us 18-11 in the 1st period. We (NCS) were playing well, but were about a step behind the ball and allowed Rosehill to convert on some easy baskets. 

We stayed even in the 2nd period (both teams scoring 10 points) as we switched from a man defense to a 3-2 zone. We looked more in control offensively as we did a great job breaking their press. Score at half was in favor of Rosehill 28-21.

We drew a little closer in the 3rd period outscoring RCS 12-7. Brittany Flowers and Arnelle Pender each scored 5 points.

Although we were only down by 2 points, we couldn’t stop Rosehill’s attack and they outscored us 14-9 in the 4th. Despite trying to foul at the end of the game, they continued to hit their free throws and maintain their lead. Final score was in favor of RCS 49-42.

As a team, we shot 17 for 52 (32.7 %) from the floor and 5 for 12 (41.7 %) from behind the arc. Freshman Arnelle Pender (who started in her first high school game) shot 4 for 5 from 3 point range. We shot 3 for 8 (37.5 %) from the line. We’ll be working on our free throws a lot over the next few days before we play Houston Christian on Friday night. We pulled down 27 rebounds and dished out 11 assists. We had 19 turnovers in our first game of the season. We averaged 22 turnovers per game last year so I was pleased with 19 this early in the year.

Edima Essien led the team in rebounds with 8, followed by Madison Flowers with 7. Madison also led the team with 6 assists and 3 steals. Arnelle Pender led the team in blocks with 2 and points with 20. Brittany Flowers followed Arnelle with 12 points and added to her NCS school record by taking 2 more charges.