EDINBURGH — The Edinburgh girls basketball team celebrated senior night Tuesday against Mid-Hoosier Conference foe South Decatur.
For Bri Howard, Allie Schooler and Abigail Scrogham, they did not want the Cougars to spoil their celebration.
The Lancers ended any South Decatur threat in the third quarter when Howard and Schooler kickstarted a 16-0 run to start the second half, and it propelled them to a 50-37 victory.
“Basically after the first half, we just knew we had to get off to a good start in the third quarter,” said Schooler, who finished with a game high 15 points. “We came out strong on defense. We had a couple of steals, and that got us on our run.”
The three seniors played their final home game as a Lancer.
“It doesn’t really seem real until tonight,” Schooler said, “when you realize that it is the last time playing on your home court.”
Edinburgh (7-12, 1-3) got a huge contribution early in the game from freshman Destiney Ramey, who knocked down a couple of triples to lead 6-2. The Cougars (3-16, 1-4) crawled back with back-to-back baskets from Madison Owens, and then Stacy Fox hit a couple of 3-pointers to take a 10-6 lead.
The game started to come apart for South Decatur from that point forward when they lost a lot of the aggressive that they showed in the first quarter.
“Way too many turnovers, and the surprising thing is that we should have controlled the boards and we didn’t,” South Decatur coach Kelly Fox said. “I thought No. 10 (Ramey) led the charge for them. We played a good game up until that point, but she broke us down defensively and after that we seem to never have adjusted.”
Ramey finished with eight points, all in the first half. Howard and Schooler were quiet in the first quarter, but got going the rest of the game. Howard totaled 11 points, with nine coming in the second half.
Stacy Fox led the Cougars with 13 points, and Taylor Best added eight.
After the Lancers built the lead to 40-20 following the 16-0 run, coach Amy Schilling credited her team for maintaining the lead and not letting up.
“We put on a little bit more pressure and came out with more enthusiasm in the third quarter,” Schilling said. “Once we got our lead, I thought we played smarter because we are not used to playing with the lead. We attacked better in the second half and have other people that can step up and make plays.”