Play fast and let it fly.
That’s what Campbell County (12-5, 2-0) girls basketball coach Davey Johnson wants his team to do and they were able to execute it on Tuesday night in Taylor Mill. The Camels won a crucial 37th District battle with Scott, 63-57 to earn themselves the No. 1 seed for the 37th District tournament and a berth into the 10th Region tournament.
“Now every game we play isn’t like a must win because of RPI,” Johnson said. “Brossart was right on our heels in RPI so every game is no longer a must win. Obviously we still want to win and we’re going to get better every day, but for the first time in my three years here, we can all breathe and enjoy the rest of the regular season and try and get better and ready for the postseason.”
Letting it fly is what the Camels did, draining nine 3-pointers in the contest as they led by as much as 15 in this one. They had nine different players enter the scoring column led by Izzy Jayasuriya’s 17 points. When Jayasuriya went out in the second quarter with some foul trouble, it was Kendall Augsback picking up the scoring pace with 10 first half points.
“I know Izzy is our leader and if people aren’t knocking down shots I have to step up,” Augsback said. “I wasn’t hitting my threes so I just took it to the rim.”
Quite possibly the two biggest of the nine 3-pointers the Camels made came from Amerie Mullins in the fourth quarter. The first put an end to a Scott 6-0 run to get Campbell back up 12 with 6:39 to play. The second also stretched the Camels lead back out to double-digits and fending off a hard charging Scott team in the closing minutes.
“It was one of those no, no, no…yes,” Johnson said. “She was about four or five feet behind the line on that second one, thought it hit the ceiling but ended up nothing but net. That kind of did it for us.”
Mullins enjoys the play fast, let it fly style they play.
“Coach always tells me let it fly so I just let it fly,” Mullins said. “I like playing fast because it keeps our momentum up, we can pass more and use everybody on the court.”
If it wasn’t one of those three, they had nine different players enter the scoring column.
“A lot of people are going to focus on Izzy and Kendall, our top two scorers,” Johnson said. “But on any given night we have plenty of girls capable of getting hot. We preach all time, play fast, shoot a lot of threes and see what happens. It’s been working for us.”
Scott (11-7, 0-1) opened with a 3-0 lead and never led again from that point. Despite the opportunities that presented themselves, a slow start put them in a 15-9 end of first quarter hole. They were able to trim a 22-14 deficit down to three, but went into halftime down 29-22.
“We just have to get more consistent rhythm early on,” Eagles coach Eric Pouncy said. “Running the floor, or our defense leading to offense and that’s something we need to do a better job of.”
The Camels started to separate in the third thanks to their long distance shooting, but Noelle Price started to take matters into her own hands late in the third with a pair of 3-pointers to keep Scott within striking distance at 48-36 at the end of three.
Price’s flurry came with 18 second half points as Scott was able to make things interesting to get within five with under 30 seconds to play, but were unable to inch any closer from that point.
“She’s (Price) really poised for being a freshman,” Pouncy said. “But really what happened is we started to get stops. That’s how we should start games and how we should play every minute of the game. We can’t wait until the end to try and make something happen, especially in a district game.”
The loss drops them to 11-7 on the season and 0-1 in district play with a matchup against Bishop Brossart still to come on Feb. 12. The only thing to determine in that game will be who gets to wear white and who has to wear road jerseys as the No. 2 seed will be up for grabs. The two will have to face one another again in the first round of the 37th District tournament in late February.
Price led Scott with 20 points, Nakiah Mejia adding 13 and Kaia Peterson with 12.
Scott returns to action on Feb. 4 at Newport Central Catholic.
Campbell County plays at Montgomery County on Thursday their next time out on the floor.