Girls Basketball Hands Minerva Its 1st Loss, McCully Wins 100th Game
Louisville 49, Minerva 34
The Louisville Lady Leopards Girls Varsity Basketball team erased a halftime deficit to storm past the previously unbeaten Minerva Lions 49-34. With the victory, Louisville is now 7-1 overall and remains an unbeaten 5-0 in NBC play.
Emily Hollifield scored 13 of her game-high 23 points in the third quarter to lead the Lady Leopards. Sarah Lairson also poured in 12 and Abby Beaver scored 6 for Louisville.
The Lions took the early advantage in jumping out to leads of 9-6 and 19-18 after the first two quarters of play. However, the Leopards came out of the locker room on a mission in scoring the first 12 points of the half to pull ahead 30-19. The tenacious defense of Grace Jackson, Lairson, and others helped generate several turnovers. Sabryna Benzel also drew multiple charges to stop potential Minerva scoring opportunities.
The Lions were unable to stop the bleeding until the 2:40 mark of the third quarter. Minerva would get within 33-27, but no closer as the Leopards tacked on five more points to take a commanding double digit lead into the final period. Louisville would continue to pour it on and led by as many as 17 points before the final buzzer sounded to finalize their 49-34 victory.
The Lions (6-1, 4-1) were led by Josie Chaddock who scored a team-high 10 points. Logan Pottdorf also scored 7 and both Bri Gassman and Madison Pearson added 6 each for Minerva.
With the victory, the Leopards have now defeated the Lions in 8 of their past 9 meetings. Louisville now leads the all-time series 40-19 overall with a 22-7 mark at home. The win also marked the 100th victory for Head Coach Garee McCully who now holds an overall record of 100-63 (.587) and a 74-29 (.718) mark against the NBC. He trails only John Gresko (202-155) and his predecessor Jeff Couto (127-74) for most coaching victories in program history:
Coach | W | L | Winning % | Years |
John Gresko | 202 | 155 | .566 | 16 |
Jeff Couto | 127 | 74 | .632 | 9 |
Garee McCully | 100 | 63 | .606 | 8 |
Greg Parrish | 44 | 24 | .647 | 3 |
Ken Smith | 37 | 42 | .468 | 5 |
John Ault | 4 | 18 | .182 | 1 |
TOTAL | 514 | 376 | .578 | 42 |
UP NEXT: The Lady Leopards will next travel to Canton South to take on the Wildcats on Wednesday, December 23. JV will begin at 6:00 PM and Varsity will follow around 7:30 PM.
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