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| MC girls end tough season, look to the future |
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2/23/2018
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
The Montgomery County High School girls’ basketball season came to an end Monday night at the MCHS Arena as Clark County dealt the Lady Indians a humbling 65-22 setback in the opening round of the 40th District Tournament.
In the second game Monday night, Paris broke away in the second half to top Bourbon County, 46-34, to advance to Wednesday night’s championship game at 7 p.m. at the MCHS Arena. Both Clark County and Paris advance to the 10th Region Tournament next week at Mason County.
Monday night’s game was over quickly as Clark County broke on top 10-0 in the first two minutes and held a 26-4 lead at the end of the opening quarter.
By halftime the margin had grown to 44-9 and then the Cardinals substituted freely in the second half to make the game slightly more competitive.
“Even against their second team we were still just struggling to break even,” said Coach Beth Barrier. “But that’s just where we are right now and we’ve got a lot of work to do to change things.”
Barrier said that work will begin in about a month.
“We’re going to give them a month off and then we’ll start back trying to work on our fundamental skills and we’ll have a number of players competing at the AAU level this summer,” Barrier said. “And then we’re going to host a league just for our players to compete in.
“We just need to play a lot right now to get better. And at the same time we’ll be working in the weight room and doing fundamental skills work. That sounds like a lot but we’ll break it up enough to not overwhelm them.”
Seventh-grader Shae Harris led Montgomery County with five points in the loss to Clark as the taller and stronger Cardinals’ forced the Lady Indians into 30 turnovers that in turn led to a large number of easy Clark County scores.
“That’s at the top of the list,” Barrier said. “We’ve got to get multiple ball handlers ready to compete at a much higher level.”
The game marked the end of the career of Delaney Bromagen, Emilie Carter and Hanna Destassis.
Destassis, who just joined the team this year, did not play while Carter, always a ball of fire when she enters a game, sank a three-pointer in her final outing.
Bromagen wrapped up a 1,000 plus point career and carried the Lady Indians on her shoulders over the last two seasons and will go down as one of the great competitors in the history of the program.
“You’ve got to admire what she did for this team over the last two years,” Barrier said. “And we’re going to miss Emilie and Hannah. Those are three outstanding young girls who are going to do well in life and hopefully they’ll look back on this program, not with the lack of success we had on the floor, but remembering the things we’ve all learned, like perseverance.”
The Lady Indians wrapped up the season with a 7-23 record.
Montgomery County will return three seniors next year in Kaitlyn Barber, Makayla Harris and Keeley Spencer and again they’ll be looking for young players to help carry the load.
“We’ve even got some players who’ll be seventh graders who could contribute next year, just like Shae Harris this season,” Barrier added.
Barrier said that the schedule next year will be a little easier than it was this time around.
“We’ve got to start building back a winning culture and there’s no reason to place yourself in a bunch of unwinnable games,” Barrier said. “We’re looking for teams that are comparable to us that will help us learn to compete at a better level and also give us a chance to have some success.”
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