Hidden Valley Dominates In 66-35 Win Over Lady Knights

Cave Spring freshman ball handler Reagan Delp looks to drive past the defensive pressure from Hidden Valley freshman Jordyn Sadler Tuesday night as the Lady Titans dominated in the 66-35 River Ridge win.
Cave Spring freshman ball handler Reagan Delp looks to drive past the defensive pressure from Hidden Valley freshman Jordyn Sadler Tuesday night as the Lady Titans dominated in the 66-35 River Ridge win.

Was this going to be the year the Cave Spring girls basketball team finally ended their long drought against Southwest County rival Hidden Valley?

The Lady Knights are off to one of their best records in recent memory, entering Tuesday night’s girls-boys varsity doubleheader with a 9-4 mark and having won every game since the start of 2015.

Despite the promising hope for the Lady Knights, Hidden Valley made sure there would be no upset in the Titan gym as the Lady Titans took control in the second quarter and rolled to the unexpectedly easy 66-35 win to remain undefeated at 11-0 for the season.

The teams battled head-to-head for one quarter with Cave Spring taking a 7-4 lead and Hidden Valley responding with a 7-2 run to go up 11-9 late in the opening frame. The Lady Knights were looking like they were prepared to give Hidden Valley a run for their money, especially when Knight freshman Reagan Delp took an inbounds pass in the waning seconds of the quarter, dribbled slightly past mid court, and threw up a desperation heave that found nothing but net. The 3-point bomb put the Knights up 12-11.

That’s when the Cave Spring offense virtually disappeared.

Taking advantage of numerous Knight turnovers and violations, Hidden Valley reeled off the first 15 points of the second quarter for a 26-12 lead and went to the halftime break up 28-16.

Things only got worse for the Lady Knights in the third quarter, as the Lady Titan half-court defense played havoc with any designs of a Cave Spring comeback, and Hidden Valley sophomore sharpshooter Drew Freeland started connecting from all over the Titan gym. Late in the third, Freeland hit from behind-the-arc, drove to the hoop for a reverse layup , then saw sophomore teammate Senia Garay bring in a rebound and score, putting Hidden Valley ahead 49-25. The Titans led 53-26 heading to the final 8 minutes.

The Titans opened the fourth quarter with an 8-2 run for a 61-28 advantage and Hidden Valley emptied the bench to settle the final score.

“Cave Spring came in here with a very good team,” Hidden Valley head coach Randy Bush noted afterward. “When we play defense like this, we’re fun to watch. Our offense was clicking tonight. We play for each other and that’s what our offense is about. We do a lot of drills in practice to work on our ball movement.”

The rapid ball rotation on offense by the Lady Titans kept players open for good looks and Freeland, junior Hailey Singleton and Garay cashed in big time, scoring 24, 19 and 14 points, respectfully.

“Our defense is better than in previous years, and tonight it was a big factor,” Singleton, who keys the Titan half-court press when the ball reaches mid court, noted. “We were very confident.”

“We knew Cave Spring was going to be a good team.” Freeland pointed out. “Tonight we played team basketball and had a big second half. We weren’t going to give ’em nothing.”

Cave Spring was led in scoring by Delp’s 14 points, while senior Hailey Sitze added 7.

“I thought their players showed up and ours didn’t,” Cave Spring head coach Jessica Ficarro said after the contest. “In the second half we got out hustled and didn’t get the 50/50 balls. We just weren’t making smart passes. We’ll learn from this.”

The rematch comes on February 12th when the Knights play host in the regular season finale for both teams.

– Bill Turner

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