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Ralph Viafora and his Page County Lady Panthers took a quick ride south to visit former Page County graduate, Paul Comer,
and his East Rockingham Lady Eagles in Elkton for the first round of the Girl’s Basketball Shenandoah District Quarter
Finals. This is the third meeting between these two teams this year with similar outcomes in the first two meetings.
Tonight would be no different.
The Lady Panthers controlled the opening tip off but the Lady Eagles pressure defense forced multiple turnovers to
gain control of the game early going up 6-0 with three layups. Leading the Lady Eagle charge was Meghan Nicholson with
4 points and 2 points from Jessica Lam. The Lady Panthers struck back with back to back field goals from Caitlin
Viafora and a layup by Morgan Andrews to close the score to 8-6 halfway through the quarter. The pressure defense proved
to tough for the Lady Panthers as the Lady Eagles Madison Comer scored a layup off a steal, Katie Shifflett sank two
close range baskets and Chase Raynes scored her sixth point of the quarter boosting the Lady Eagles up to 18-6 as the
whistle blew to end the quarter.
The aggressive play in the first quarter also came at a price as the Lady Panthers was put into the bonus quickly into
the second quarter as Katie Shifflett picked up her second foul. The Lady Panthers took advantage with a basket from
Allison Breeden and a pair of made free throws from MaKayla Smith bringing the score to 18-8 before a Page County timeout
was called by Coach Viafora with 6:41 left in the half. Meghan Nicholson scored off a nice assist by Tiarra Smith but was
immediately answered by an Allison Breeden put back on the other end of the court making the score 20-12. After a time out
by East Rockingham’s Coach Comer to address rebounding issues with his girls the Lady Eagles went on a 17 to 8 run with
Katie Shifflett showing off some athletic skills but grabbing a offensive rebound with 1.5 seconds on the clock and going
up and under to gently toss the ball in the hoop to end the half with a score of 37-18.
The Lady Eagles came out of the half energized flying up and down the court scoring on a barrage of transition layups from
several players. The Lady Panthers managed eight points off baskets by Allison Breeden, Morgan Andrews, Krislyn Knighton
and Dakota Dean as she scored her last points as a Lady Panther with a nice offensive rebound and put back. The score as the
quarter ended was 55-26.
The fourth quarter was a little different as both teams got their entire roster some good minutes on the court. One crowd
pleasing moment was when Alexa Wolf grabbed her second defensive rebound with a nice outlet pass that made its way to
Makayla Gray sprinting up the floor. Gray pulled up in front of the Page County bench and buried a high arching shot over
an outstretched East Rockingham defender for Page County’s only three pointer of the night.
Final score of the game was 66-37.
Page County Scoring
10 Morgan Andrews
8 Caitlin Viafora
6 Allison Breeden
6 MaKayla Smith
3 Makayla Gray
2 Dakota Dean
2 Krislyn Knighton
East Rockingham Scoring
13 Chase Raynes
10 Katie Shifflett
9 Madison Comer
8 Jessica Lam
6 Meghan Nicholson
5 Stacie Bailey
4 Katie Dofflemyer
4 Olivia Dofflemyer
4 Kristan Wilkens
2 Cheyenne Cash
1 Tiarra Smith
With the loss Page County finishes the overall season with 5 wins and 19 losses (district - 1 win and 14 losses).
With the win East Rockingham currently has an overall record of 23 wins and 1 loss (district - 15 wins and 0 losses)
and advances to the second round of the tournament to play Luray at Eastern Mennonite University on Wednesday 2/15/2012.
Tip off time will be 6:30pm.
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