Prep Basketball: Boyle girls get well with 88-52 rout of West Jessamine

There’s never a bad time for a 36-point win, but the Boyle County girls might have needed just such a blowout now more than at any time this season.
The Rebels had taken a series of beatings in a four-game losing streak that threatened to undo all the good things they had done in a surprisingly good first month.
But they recovered Tuesday night by winning the same kind of one-sided game they have been losing lately, as aggressive play on both offense and defense allowed them to hammer West Jessamine 88-52 at Rebel Arena.
“We got a little confidence back,” Boyle coach Greg Edwards said.
Boyle, which was 6-20 last season, opened this year with five straight wins and was 8-4 at Christmas but had lost four its previous four games by an average score of 70-40 and had lost its last two games by a combined total of 92 points.
But this game was nothing like those games. The Rebels took out their frustrations on West Jessamine, a struggling program that has lost more than 20 games in each of the last six seasons and nine of the last 11 seasons and a team they had already beaten 62-48 one month and one day earlier.
Hannah Harris scored 22 points to lead Boyle (11-8), which broke the game open in the second quarter with an 18-0 run and kept their foot on the gass throughout the second half.
Their offense produced the most points Boyle has scored since an 89-81 overtime win over Cawood in December 2007, and their defense forced West Jessamine (3-15) into 33 turnovers that led to 33 of those points.
“We’ve been working really hard the past two days on defense ... and trying to be more fluid in our offense,” Edwards said.
The Rebels did just what Edwards hoped they would do on offense, attacking the basket and accepting open shots when they got them.
“The girls had confidence to shoot the ball,” Edwards said. “When we’re open we need to shoot. Before we were hesitant; tonight we weren’t. We loosened up, went out there and played on offense and did what we had to do.”
The Rebels also created extra shots with their work on the offensive glass. They had 18 offensive rebounds in the first half, when they had 42 field goal attempts and West Jessamine had only 19.
“We were really active,” Edwards said. “For us, that’s the key. We have to be active on the offensive end.”
Boyle was just as active on defense, where its full-court pressure forced the Colts into all sorts of mistakes.
West Jessamine had 15 turnovers and only nine field goal attempts in the second quarter, and Boyle got eight points off turnovers during the 18-0 run that gave it a 39-18 lead.
The Colts went without a basket for a span of 7 minutes, 57 seconds in the second and third quarters as the Rebels stretched their lead to 46-20.
They took a 69-33 after Shelby Bishop, Lauren Richards and Harris each hit 3-pointers in the final 2 minutes of the third quarter, and they led by as many as 41 points in the fourth quarter.
Harris and Natalie Settle, who scored 13 points, got all of their points in the first three periods, as Boyle’s reserves played the entire fourth quarter.
Emmie Harris scored all 11 of her points in the fourth quarter, and Mary Fyfe scored all 10 of her points in the second quarter for the Rebels. Every girl who played for Boyle scored at least two points.
Boyle shot 29 percent from the field in the first half and 54 percent in the second, and the Rebels had 70 shots compared to 49 for West Jessamine.
They outrebounded the Colts 46-38 with nine rebounds from Shelby Bishop, seven from Settle and six each from Kalin Bottoms and Cami Holton.
Boyle also won the free throw shooting contest in a game that included 42 fouls. The Rebels were 28 for 40 at the foul line; the Colts were 13 for 26.
Shelby Hawkins led West Jessamine with 18 points.

West Jessamine    15    20    33    52
Boyle County         18    41    69    88
WEST JESSAMINE (3-15) — Emma Baxter 8, Ashlee Rose 6, Shelby Hawkins 18, Erin Conner 14, Anna Lee 2, Katelyn Quillen 4.
BOYLE (11-8) — Kalin Bottoms 4, Shelby Bishop 7, Natalie Settle 13, Hannah Harris 22, Lauren Richards 8, Emmie Harris 11, Hannah Johnson 4, Marlee Smith 4, Dee Foster 2, Cami Holton 3, Mary Fyfe 10.