Southern Boone girls get past Blair Oaks 57-37

The Blair Oaks Lady Falcons get ready to break down a huddle on their bench during a timeout in Wednesday's game against Southern Boone at Blair Oaks High School in Wardsville. (Tom Rackers/News Tribune)
The Blair Oaks Lady Falcons get ready to break down a huddle on their bench during a timeout in Wednesday's game against Southern Boone at Blair Oaks High School in Wardsville. (Tom Rackers/News Tribune)

WARDSVILLE -- Down by five points at halftime, the Blair Oaks Lady Falcons talked about things they needed to do to be successful in the final two quarters.

But the Southern Boone Lady Eagles didn’t let that happen.

“It all comes down to the start, we always talk about doing the things we talk about in the locker room in the third quarter,” Blair Oaks coach Brandon Moore said after the Lady Falcons dropped a 57-37 decision Wednesday night to the Lady Eagles in Tri-County Conference action at Blair Oaks High School.

“But the ball didn’t bounce our way a couple of times, we got down on ourselves and the wheels came off.”

Southern Boone scored the first eight points of the third quarter, then after a basket by Emma Wolken of Blair Oaks, rattled off the next 14 on its way to a 48-23 advantage heading to the fourth.

“It wasn’t one specific thing,” Moore said. “We didn’t get stops when maybe we should have and we had too many empty offensive possessions.”

Blair Oaks struggled on the offensive end for much of the game. A 3-pointer by Wolken with 5:15 to go in the first quarter gave the Lady Falcons a 7-2 lead.

But the Lady Falcons managed just one basket in the next two-plus quarters, with 14 of their next 16 points coming from the free-throw line.

“We have to find a way to get some offensive production,” Moore said. “We’ve been talking about offense every day for the last three weeks, we’re only averaging 39 points per game and we have to do better than that.”

The Lady Falcons had three starters on the bench in the first half with three fouls.

“We were doing a lot of reaching and not going straight up,” Moore said. “Then in the second half, we over-corrected and let them catch it in their spots, get in the block and get their points.”

Emilee DeHaas definitely got her points in the third quarter, going 6-for-6 from the field and hitting both of her foul shots to score 14 of her game-high 25 points. She also pulled down 11 rebounds.

“We had her on our scouting report, we have to do a better job than that to try and take away some of the things she likes to do,” Moore said.

Southern Boone led by as many as 27 points in the fourth quarter, that coming at 57-30. Blair Oaks closed the game on a 7-0 run in the final 4:15.

Ma’Jayla Dudley added 12 points for Southern Boone (7-5 overall, 1-1 Tri-County), all in the first half.

Wolken had 11 points for Blair Oaks (3-7, 0-1).

Blair Oaks won’t have to wait long to see Southern Boone again. The third-seeded Lady Eagles and sixth-seeded Lady Falcons will play Tuesday night in the opening round of the Union Invitational.

“We’re probably going to do things a little different,” Moore said.

In a two-quarter JV game, Southern Boone defeated Blair Oaks 24-9. Molly Porter had four points for the Lady Falcons.