A postgame look at the stat sheet Thursday night left Polk County head girls basketball coach Craig Culbreth shaking his head. And ready for the holiday break.
After a competitive first quarter, the Wolverines struggled to score the final three, falling 64-29 to Mountain Heritage in Western Highlands Conference action at Polk County.
The loss, Polk’s third straight after a 5-1 start, came in the final pre-holiday game for the Wolverines (5-4, 0-2).
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“We had 50 missed shots, all of them pretty good shots,” Culbreth said. “It seemed like we had a lid on the one goal down here.
“They’ve got a good team, and they shot the ball well. We just were really cold tonight.”
Trailing 16-10 at the end of the first period, Polk drew within four when Lyric Flood scored on a short jumper to open the second quarter. But Mountain Heritage (7-1, 2-0) then began to pull away, back-to-back 3-pointers by Abby Renfro and Nyssa Freeman fueling a run that ended with the Cougars up 36-14 at halftime.
Mountain Heritage extended the lead to 55-26 at the end of the third period, then held Polk County scoreless for almost five minutes in the fourth period.
“We’ve had a lot with colds and sniffles and such, so it’s a really good time for this break to come up,” Culbreth said. “We’re going to give everybody a week off to get better, then we’ll come back and see if we can start getting better.”
Ashley Love, Janada Carson and Ashley Kropp all scored six points to lead Polk County, which also got nine rebounds from Sarah Phipps. Abbey Bailey had 20 points and Freeman and Destiny Elkins each had 16 for Mountain Heritage.
Polk County Scoring
Janada Carson 6, Ashley Kropp 6, Ashley Love 6, Savannah Ross 4, India Godlock 3, Hayley Kropp 2, Lyric Flood 2
