Lady Dragons score 91
Five score double figures in lopsided win
Clinton High School girls basketball Coach Alicia Phillips couldn’t be happier with her team’s start to the 2023-24 season.
The Lady Dragons, who began the season 5-0, closed out the pre-Thanksgiving portion of their schedule with a 91-19 victory over Powell’s First Baptist Academy on Tuesday, Nov. 21, in the friendly confines of the Don W. Lockard Gymnasium.
“Our girls are playing really well right now and we’re playing as physical as I’ve ever seen,” CHS Coach Alicia Phillips said after her team routed the Lady Eagles during their last time out.
“I have six girls who can put up 20 or 30 points on any given night,” she said. “We’re not a team where you can just close in on two girls, and we have some other girls who are coming in behind them.”
Due to the lopsided score against First Baptist, the Lady Dragons’ starters played just a half, but still managed to fill the stat sheet with some gaudy numbers. Clinton had all five starters post double figures in the scoring column.
Allie York led the Lady Dragons’ offensive attack with 17 points. Josie Moody added 13 points. Bailey Burroughs and Lanee Carmichael chipped in with 12 points apiece. Addi Gamble finished with 10 points.
Burroughs, a post player for the Lady Dragons, also had eight rebounds and seven assists against the Lady Eagles. Gamble finished with seven steals and six assists.
“That was all in two quarters,” Phillips said.
The Lady Dragons opened the new season on Wednesday, Nov, 15, with a pair of victories: the first over Coalfield, 69-30), and the next over the Knoxville Ambassadors, 84-39, a team of home-schooled student-athletes.
On Saturday, Nov. 18, Clinton knocked off a pair of formidable Class 4A foes as the team edged William Blount 69-62 before toppling longtime geographical rival Powell 65-50.
The Lady Governors have struggled in recent years, but Phillips said that she looks for them to be competitive this year.
“They have a good basketball team this year,” she said. “They’ll do well in the district that they’re in.”
The Lady Dragons face the Lady Panthers, who lost their first three games of the season, in a rematch on Friday at Powell, and despite starting the season with an 0-3 record, Phillips knows that her young but battle-tested squad will have to play well when it heads to the west side of Emory Road for the rematch.
“Powell is a tough place to play and they have some great players,” Phillips said. “They have some good shooters, and when they’re on, they’re on.”
The rematch with the Lady Panthers will be Clinton’s first road game of the new campaign as it closes out a busy week of competition. The Lady Dragons will host Meigs County on Thursday night.
The Lady Dragons opened the week with a home game against Karns Tuesday night, but results were not available at press time.
Phillips said her team would be tested by the Lady Beavers, coached by former Oak Ridge assistant Lauren Trent, a Karns High graduate.
“Karns pretty much handed it to us both times we played last year, but our girls are better and more physical this year,” Phillips said.