Gallery by Greg Barnett
Gardner – Shady Spring and PikeView had become accustomed to meeting in the sectional championship since the move to the four-class system.
Each program has earned a win in that scenario with Shady’s coming in 2021. This year’s matchup came a round earlier in an elimination game, one that the Tiger struggled in.
PikeView outscored Shady Spring 21-5 in the second quarter, never looking back en route to a 64-31 win Monday at PikeView.
With the win the Panthers advance to Wednesday’s sectional championship game where they’ll host Westside, the No. 2 seed.
Neither PikeView nor Shady found much success from the field in the opening quarter, shooting 29 and 13 percent, respectively. PikeView exited the opening stanza with a 12-5 advantage. The gap quickly widened and the Tigers never closed it.
“I think we just settled down,” PikeView coach Tracy Raban said. “There’s obviously some nerves because everybody knows what’s at stake. You know if you lose you’re done. I think we just settled down into the game, relaxed and start knocking down some shots.”
Riley Meadows and Jocelyn Hall were the first-quarter catalysts for the Panthers, scoring four points each to build the seven-point advantage. Shady’s Kendra Pizzino cut it to five with a jumper to open the second quarter before Haley Justice answered with a layup. Then slowly the snowball began to avalanche. A pair of buckets from Hannah Harden, who scored six in the quarter an 14 in the game, sparked a 6-0 run.
Megan Hendrick stopped the bleeding with a layup to make it 20-9 but a 13-1 PikeView spurt with field goals from Meadows, Harden, Justice and Brooke Craft gave the hosts an insurmountable 23-point advantage at the break.
“We were getting the shots, we just couldn’t get them to fall,” Shady Spring head coach Tabitha Barnes said. “I think we were 3 of 21 at halftime. You can’t win a game shooting like that.”
For the Panthers it was a complete effort. Meadows, the team’s leading scorer, was good for 20 points as well as nine rebounds but she wasn’t alone. Harden added 14 points while Haley Justice pitched in 11 points off the bench.
“We’ve talked about it the last three or four weeks that we’ve got to have more contribution from everybody,” Raban said. “It can’t just be one person and when we have played our better games the scoring has been more balanced. When we’re able to get balanced scoring and everybody is aggressive on the offensive end of the floor, and I mean everybody, we’re a better team.”
Pizzino was the lone Tiger to score in double figures, posting 16 points in the loss.
PikeView will host Westside on Wednesday with he winner hosting the Region 3 co-final while the loser will hit the road next week.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
SS: 5 5 10 11 – 31
PV: 12 21 17 14 – 64
Shady Spring
Kendra Pizzino 16, Kylee Barnes 6, Megan Hendrick 5, Jenna Webb 4
PikeView
Hannah Harden 14, Brooke Craft 6, Cat Farmer 2, Jaelynn Shrewsbury 4, Maddy Kinzer 1, Haley Justice 11, Jocelyn Hall 6, Riley Meadows 20
3-point goals – SS:4 (Pizzino 3, K. Barnes 1) ; PV:
