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By Josh Lewis, Writer
For the first time since the 2016-17 season, the Eastern Lady Musketeers topped the Lady Lions of Salem. Eastern’s defense forced turnovers in waves to keep Salem from gaining any kind of momentum on offense. Eastern forced 35 turnovers to help them put Salem away 69-20.
Eastern Head Coach Taylor Drury said she thought her team played a complete game against Salem. “This week was all about us. We hadn’t played our version of basketball like I wanted us to all year. I thought we came out and tried to do that. We played as a unit offensively and defensively. I was very pleased with that as far as everything goes.”
Eastern took an early lead thanks to the sharp shooting thanks to a couple of threes from Bailey Trainor to put the Musketeers ahead 11-2. Turnovers for the Lions as Addison Smith hit a three to push the lead 16-3. Alexis Maudlin got a floater to fall to make it a 18-5 game late in the first.
Trainor drained another three for Eastern to open the second quarter and the lead ballooned to 25-5. Rachel Little came off the bench for Salem and scored two straight baskets to cut the lead 30-10. Abby Hardy hit two free throws, but Eastern just kept plugging away and built up a 37-13 lead heading into the break.
“I felt like we might have potential to do that going through the season. I would like to capitalize on that more often,” said Drury. “Tonight we got the chance to debut it and see how it looked and see what we need to work on. It looked pretty good. There are some things we have to tweak but overall I was pretty happy with it.”
The Smith sisters continued their barrage for Eastern in the second quarter. Addison found Avery for a layup and then Addison got a bucket of her own to push the lead to 53-18 and Eastern cruised to their win from there.
Eastern will host Henryville on Wednesday while Salem will host West Washington on Tuesday.
SHS scoring: A. Hardy 2, Little 4, Maudlin 3, K. Hardy 5, Maynard 2, Walters 1, Wilson 3
EHS scoring: Trainor 11, Burton 8, Ad. Smith 18, Hauner 5, Av. Smith 7, Robbins 13, Brawner 5, Jackson 2
Threes: K. Hardy, Trainor 3, Ad. Smith, Hauner, Robbins
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Total | |
| SHS | 5 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 20 |
| EHS | 20 | 17 | 19 | 13 | 69 |
Alexis Maudlin and Sidney Burton fight over the ball.
Sydney Wilson works for a bucket in the paint.
