By JODY WESTMORELAND
Sports Writer
ECRU — It was another close call for the Lady Vikings of North Pontotoc Friday night.
After taking a tough division loss to Ripley the week before, the Lady Vikings came out sluggish, but hung on for the win over the Blue Mountain Lady Cougars, 57-53.
For Lady Viking head coach Shane Montgomery it wasn’t pretty, but he’ll take the win.
“We made a lot of mistakes tonight.” Montgomery said after the game. “We did a poor job handling the ball in the first half but we got some defensive stops down the stretch that saved us.”
The coach also got help from his star forward, Anna Lisa Powell. She put up 33 points on the night and was a key factor in the game.
The first half
The game started out slowly for North when they missed their first five shots and saw the Lady Cougars jump out to a quick 5-0 lead. The Lady Vikings missed several easy shots in the quarter and after Blue Mountain got a three-pointer from guard Nichole Gibbs, the score was 14-8 in favor of Blue Mountain.
Anna Lisa Powell then took over the game.
She hit two quick baskets as the quarter ended to get her team back in the game at 16-12.
As the second period got underway, Powell started where she left off with a lay up off a Blue Mountain turnover.
Blue Mountain guard Lekedra Washington came back with one of her own to go up 18-16, but Powell came right back with a steal and another lay up to tie it up at 18-18.
Powell was all over the court in the first half. It seemed the Lady Cougars had everyone on lock-down but Powell. They just couldn’t stop her.
Powell also showed off her passing skills when she found forward Shanda Melton under the goal for two points to take the lead 20-18 with five minutes left in the half.
Even though she played well, Powell had been sick the entire day. She was able to put her sickness aside and step up when her team needed her most.
Blue Mountain had their chances to pull away in this one off of Lady Vikings’ turnovers, but they seemed to have more problems handling the ball as well.
With Powell taking a much needed rest, North got their offense going as they showed good ball movement and patience.
Senior Nekia Wheeler came off the bench and found Melton under the goal for two points making it 26-20 with 3:20 to go in the half.
The half ended when Blue Mountain hit one at the buzzer to pull to within one at 28-27.
The second half
When the third period started, Powell had 20 points and was looking for more. She had several quick buckets then watched her teammates do some scoring as well.
Senior Danielle Golden came off the bench and played well. She hit the open shots when given the opportunity and played pretty tough on defense. With the quarter ending, she got a rebound and put-back to put her team up by seven points at 46-39.
The fourth period saw the Lady Vikings prove they could hold a lead.
Blue Mountain finally found a weakness in the North defense by getting the ball down low to their big center Adriana Spearman.
She scored several baskets in the final period, but it was too little too late because Powell and company wouldn’t give up the lead.
The Lady Vikings went into victory mode at the end and moved the ball around well to hold on to the win.
North improved to 10-12 on the season, doubling their win total from last year.
Powell led all scorers with 33. Katie Spencer, Danielle Golden and Shanda Melton each pitched in with six points in the North Pontotoc win.
The North girls were scheduled to play at Falkner Saturday night, with another division game at Corinth Tuesday night.
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