MOUNT HERMON — Sometimes it seems what goes around comes around.
After dropping a 20-point decision to Burlington Williams two nights earlier, Southern Alamance turned the tables on Chatham Central Thursday evening, outscoring the Lady Bears 35-9 over the middle two quarters on its way to claiming a 47-27 non-conference triumph on the winners’ court.
While the victory elevated the Lady Patriots to 6-10 overall, Chatham Central lost for the fourth time in its last five outings and registered its fewest points of the season in falling to 5-8 for the year.
Alyssa Jacobson fired in a trio of three-pointers and finished with 20 points to lead Southern Alamance, which also received 11 points from Alexis Curtis. The Lady Patriots connected on 33 percent (19-of-58) of their field goal attempts and held a 31-24 advantage on the boards while committing 14 turnovers.
Danielle Vaughn paced the Lady Bears with 11 points as Chatham Central shot a paltry 23 percent (nine-of-40) from the floor while turning the ball over 25 times.
“I thought we had a total team effort tonight,” said Southern Alamance coach Amy Sarratt. “Although we struggled some from the perimeter, we were very patient executing our half-court game. Chatham Central did a good job attacking our zone early-on, but when we switched to a man-to-man defense we managed to force some turnovers that helped create offense at our end of the floor.”
Lady Bears’ coach Lynda Burke noted her team had to revise its normal game plan since it was playing without a pair of starters.
“Missing our starting point guard and center caused us to shuffle our lineup, and as a result Danielle ended up handling the ball more than usual, which took away some of her offense,” said Burke. “When we weren’t turning the ball over on the offensive end we took shots we wanted, but most of them rimmed out. While I felt like we hustled the whole game, we didn’t do a good job defensively stopping the ball in the second quarter when Southern Alamance was able to pull away and open up a big lead at halftime.”
A Lacy Mills three-pointer from the right wing and Maeghan Wallace’s jumper in the lane gave the Lady Patriots a 5-0 advantage in the first minute-and-a-half of action before Chatham Central closed out the initial quarter with a 6-2 spurt to pull within one following Vaughn’s lane jumper with 1:53 left in the period.
The Lady Bears seized their only lead of the evening at the start of the second stanza when Kailey Green’s layup and a Grace Jones free throw put Chatham Central ahead 9-7 prior to Jacobson’s trey from the right corner with 6:17 to go in the frame that put Southern Alamance in front for good while igniting a 10-0 run that increased the Lady Patriots’ advantage to eight with 4:34 remaining until halftime.
Following Savannah Stilwell’s jumper off the left baseline that drew the Lady Bears within 19-14 with exactly three minutes to go before the break, Curtis’ put-back in the paint half a minute later triggered a 9-0 quarter-ending burst that allowed Southern Alamance to boost its lead to 14 at intermission.
With Jacobson tallying 10 of her points in the third stanza, the Lady Patriots outscored Chatham Central 14-1 in the frame and equaled their biggest advantage of the night at 42-15 following Jacobson’s three-pointer from beyond the top of the key with 4:20 left in the period prior to the Lady Bears closing out the contest with a 12-5 run behind four points each from Vaughn and Tanner Little to account for the final margin.