The Waynesville Lady Tigers came to the Bolivar field house Wednesday, Jan. 4, to contest the Lady Liberators.
The Lady Liberators were looking for their 11th win of the season. Between them and that victory was a team that featured one of the better forwards in the area. Junior forward Breanna Hurd, who averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds last season and has committed to playing at the University of Virginia, was set to bring lots of headaches for Bolivar.
This sets up a matchup, with Bolivar's Cora Roweton and Dailynn VanDeren having established themselves as dominant rebounders and offense forces.
The game began showing what was going to be an even contest until the last two minutes. Bolivar kept Roweton outside the lane and drew Hurd away from the lane, allowing VanDeren to post up for two baskets. Shelby Larimer nailed a couple of threes, and the Liberator defense held Hurd to a field goal.
The first quarter ended with a Bolivar lead 12-11.
The second quarter was neck and neck with Hurd showing her ability to penetrate to the basket.
The Lady Liberators outscored the Tigers by one in the quarter to take a halftime lead of 22-20.
After spending almost the entire halftime in the locker room, the Lady Tigers returned to the game.
The changes the Tigers made were not evident as Bolivar, behind timely baskets by Roweton and Carly Cribbs, extended the Liberators’ biggest lead of the night 32-28 at the end of the third quarter.
The fourth quarter saw an upturn for the Tigers, as midway through, they had erased the Bolivar lead and gone ahead by 3 points.
Bolivar coach Ben Glasgow did not see his girls panic; instead, Bolivar began to hit on all cylinders, getting a driving lay-up, three pointers, and power baskets inside to take an 11-point lead with two minutes to go.
The Tigers applied the press and Bolivar with two fast break baskets. Waynesville started fouling to slow the clock, but Bolivar countered by making all of their free throws. The final score was Bolivar 56-47.
Leading scorers for Bolivar were Roweton with 20 points and Cribbs with 14 points.
Next up for Bolivar is at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9 at Central.