Lady Dogs remain undefeated as Hampton takes both games against UH
Published 3:48 pm Wednesday, January 11, 2023
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By Ron Marvel
Star Correspondent
The Hampton Girls and Boys Varsity basketball teams faced off against University High in a clash of styles. University High likes to grind out games defensively, while Hampton prefers to push the ball and play at a more rapid pace. Tuesday night served as notice to other region foes that Hampton is going to have to be dealt with and their ability to put up points is going to serve as an obstacle to any area foe.
Girls- Hampton 73 University High 16
Dominating, commanding, overpowering, and shellacking, find several more adjectives and verbs and put them in a long run on sentence and you still might not grasp the first half butt-kicking the Hampton Lady Bulldogs put on the Lady Jr. Bucs Tuesday night. The Bucs had no answer for a Bulldog trap game that must have had the Lady Bucs convinced they were playing eight or nine girls not five. The Bulldogs took advantage of forced turnovers to jump out to a 52-2 halftime lead. Madi McClain had 16 in the half including two three-pointers in the first period and Piper Helle and Linsey Jenkins chipped in eight in the half as the team would spread the wealth around.
Coach Carpenter would spend the second half giving minutes to his reserves, Hannah Smith would hit a long distance three and Faye Carrico would score six of her 12 points in the final quarter. Linsey Jenkins and Ella Estep each added eight points. Coach Carpenter talked about what he needed to see moving forward from his team “we have to get better rebounding the ball, we have to get better at in the transition, the girls have bought into the trap game we can get better.” Seniors McClain and Jenkins, who were recognized post-game, discussed the game as well “we just play well together. We know each other well, strengths and weaknesses,” Jenkins added, “our defense is a group effort, our second bunch goes hard all the time which makes us better.”
Hampton 78 University High 66
In a back and forth contest, Hampton’s Cadon Buckles came out and scored seven points in the opening minutes of the final period to push the Bulldogs lead to 14, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The two teams traded jabs in the opening minutes and stood knotted up at 13-13 at the 1:14 mark of the first period. Center Hayden Campbell, who was a force inside all night long, scored the final four points in the period, including a turnaround jumper to put the Bulldogs up by three points going into the second period. The Bulldogs would go on short runs pushing the lead to five points several times only to see the Jr. Bucs storm back and either tie or be down by one. Michael Anspaugh would have several assists in the game to keep the Bulldogs rolling, including a lob pass down low to Campbell to make the score 27-23 at the 4:16 mark of the second. Hampton would spend the last five minutes of the period in the bonus and as they did all night, hitting their free-throws, going 15 of 18 on the night and pushing their lead to seven points only to see Bucs player AJ Murphy hit a three to send the team to the locker room in a heated contest 40-36 Hampton.
The second half started with more see-saw action as Campbell would hit a bucket and Anspaugh would connect on a 12-foot jumper just to see UH cut the lead to one again off a Brady Weems three-pointer. Buckles would soar for a layup and grab the foul for the three-point play to push the Bulldog advantage to six at 53-47 with 2:18 remaining in the third period. A 4-0 UH run would cut the lead to two before Buckles would hit a couple of free-throws to push the lead back up to four heading into the final period, where Buckles would simply take over, scoring 14 of his game-high 34 points helping push the lead up to as many as 14. The Bucs had no more runs left in them and the Bulldogs would keep the Bucs at arms-length the rest of the contest. Besides Buckles 34, Hayden Campbell would work the inside for 26 and Anspaugh would chip in nine, the Bucs would be led by shooting guard AJ Murphy who would finish with 19.
After the game, Bulldogs head coach Ned Smith would talk about his team’s ability to finish. “Our kids kept playing defense in the second half it led to some steals and we were able to get some easy buckets; we played a lot of kids that made us fresher in the final period.” Senior guard Cadon Buckles recognized the team’s mentality in the contest, “we knew we had to finish what we started, we go to the rim and made some shots, good ball movement whatever it takes we have to do.”