Lady Jackets Win Big Against Ohio Valley

The Cedarville women’s basketball team easily handled the visiting Ohio Valley Fighting Scots Thursday night, cruising to an 80-40 victory.

The Lady Jackets jumped out to a quick lead in a home contest against the Scots. The two teams traded baskets with Cedarville maintaining a slight lead. With about ten minutes left in the first half, Cedarville broke the game wide open and didn’t look back.

They initially struggled with the Scots’ full court pressure, but once the Jackets figured it out, they got easy bucket after easy bucket. Kayla Linkous set the tone the entire first half, scoring inside and outside. The Lady Jackets’ transition game wore the Scots out. They went into the half leading 43-26.

The second half was more of the same. The Jackets continued to push the tempo and dominate in the paint. One factor that helped Cedarville in the low post was that the Scots were missing a key post player who had been averaging 13 points per game.

“They were missing their post player and I think we took advantage of that,” said Cedarville head coach Kirk Martin. “The focus was to get the ball inside.”

Linkous finished with 20 points on 80 percent shooting from the field. Freshman frontcourt mate Breanne Watterworth ended the game with 14 points without missing a shot. Freshman guard Abby Wolford led the team with seven rebounds, and Raegan Ryan had a team-high five assists. As a team, Cedarville shot 65 percent from the field, compared to the Scots’ 25 percent.

Coach Martin said he believes a key to his team’s continued success is rebounding.

“We’re practicing (rebounding) more in practice,” he said. “Everyday we’ve got something about rebounding. (Kayla Linkous) got healthy and that’s helped a lot.”

Cedarville will go for their seventh straight win against Salem International at Salem, West Virginia on January 24 at 2 p.m.

Byron Brown is a junior global business major and sports reporter for Cedars. He plays for the JV basketball team here at Cedarville. His hobbies include playing sports, exercising, watching sports, eating and watching movies.