No matter who is on the floor for the Campbell County girls basketball team, they have the green light from deep.
One through five and all the way down the bench, it’s a philosophy that’s evolved with coach Davey Johnson and the personnel he has at his disposal.
In Monday’s 10th Region tournament quarterfinal against Nicholas County at Campbell County Middle School, the Camels bombed away from deep, hitting 12 three-pointers on their way to a 72-36 victory.
“One through five, do not care. My next four, next five, my next six, I honestly feel all of them when they’re open and they get a good look, I feel like it’s going in,” Johnson said. “We knew we’d see a zone today and being somewhat on our own home floor, I felt pretty confident in that.”
Izzy Jayasuriya led the way with 18 points and nine rebounds, Kendall Augsback added 15 and Madeline Barbian posted 14 points. The three combined to hit nine of the 12 three-point makes for the Camels.
Barbian is the one who got things going from deep, coming off the bench in the first quarter and hitting two and shaking off a 9-4 Camels deficit.
“Once they all see one go in, it’s just kind of a trickle down effect and that’s what happened for us,” Johnson said.
Nicholas County was able to open the game up 7-0 behind the state’s leading scorer Maggie Simons, scoring nine of the Lady Jackets first 11 as they took a 11-10 lead. Simons was put under wraps for the most part from there, held under her 30.6 point per game average as she finished the game with 22 points.
“We had multiple ideas ready for her,” Johnson said. “If she got going we were going to throw different looks at her, but I challenged the girls to guard her and if they needed help be there. I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job and made it tough on her. I was impressed with how in control she was for as much as we threw at her pressure-wise.”
Barbian’s triples helped opened things up as they gathered a ton of offensive rebounds off misses and continued to fire away. They finished grabbing 19 offensive rebounds and had 37 total rebounds for the game.
Five of the Camels triples came in the second quarter, when they outscored Nicholas 29-6 and built a 43-17 lead by halftime.
“It makes it a lot easier to play,” Barbian said. “It’s easier when you can pass to anyone and rely on them to make it.”
The 26-point halftime lead grew to 35 with 2:52 left in the third, Barbian’s triple forcing a running clock the rest of the way.
“Making the first one helps,” Barbian said. “It gives me confidence and coach helps a lot in giving us confidence if we miss a few.”
The victory gets Campbell County into Friday’s semifinals where they’ll face the monumental task of trying to take down tournament favorite George Rogers Clark. The Lady Cardinals were a 77-37 winner over Mason County in Monday’s other quarterfinal.
“I think if we can get close to 15 threes I think we’ll be there,” Johnson said. “Last year we got some good looks on them early that didn’t fall. Not saying by any means we would have won the game, but things could have been different and the girls playing with confidence. We know they’re going to press and if we take care of the ball we should get some good looks out of it. It will take every girl being confident. If we pass up open shots, we’ll turn it over, especially against them.”
Johnson said he’ll put six, seven girls out on defense in practice the next few days to try and simulate GRC’s pressure.
The two did not face each other during the regular season.
PHOTO SLIDESHOW: Campbell County-Nicholas County 10th Region quarterfinals (provided by Charles Bolton)
CAMELS 72, LADY JACKETS 36
CAMPBELL COUNTY — 14-29-19-10 — 72
NICHOLAS COUNTY — 11-6-12-7 — 36
Scoring
Campbell (72) — Jayasuriya 18, Augsback 15, Barbian 14, Brockman 6, Davis 5, Bittner 5, Whitford 4, Elam 3, Peoples 2
Nicholas (36) — Simons 22, Sexton 6, Adams 4, Banks 3, Mitchell 1
Game Stats
3-Pointers Made: Campbell 12, Nicholas 2
Free Throws: Campbell 4/5, Nicholas 6/11
Fouls: Campbell 14, Nicholas 9
Records: Campbell County 18-9, Nicholas County 19-13
