Jim Walker

jim.walker@irontontribune.com

 

WILLOW WOOD — The Symmes Valley Lady Vikings seem to have the same formula for each game. They fall behind in the first half, then battle back in the second half.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. On Monday night, it did work as the Lady Vikings rallied to beat the Rock Hill Redwomen 65-54.

“The girls showed a lot of character,” said Lady Vikings’ coach Brandon Walker.

“It seems like almost every game we get behind at halftime and have to battle backing the second half. It was the same thing (Monday), but we kept battling until we finished the job. The girls really gutted it out.”

Kalli Hunt scored 12 points and Kaitlyn Payne had 11 points to lead the Lady Vikings (8-11).

Kace Russell scored 18 points and Brook Knipp 14 points for Rock Hill (6-11).

Russell scored 6 points and Knipp had 5 points in the first quarter as the Redwomen took a 17-13 lead.

Rock Hill continued to pull away in the second quarter. Russell scored 6 more points and Madison Damron got 5 points as the lead grew to 39-29 at the half.

But the Redwomen managed only 5 points in the third quarter while Payne scored 7 points as the Lady Vikings rallied to tie the game at 44-44.

Symmes Valley outscored Rock Hill 21-10 in the fourth quarter including 9 of 15 from the foul line as the Redwomen were forced to foul.

“We came out and had our usual bad third quarter. Offensively we just went cold. We played great the first half,” said Rock Hill coach Greg Damron.

“But you have to give them credit. Their kids kept playing hard and we just didn’t play well in the second half.”

For the game, Symmes Valley converted just 17 of 37 free throw attempts. However, it was good enough as the Redwomen were only able to connect on 9 of 18 foul shots.

“We still need to do a better job at the foul line,” said Walker. “We work on it every day. There have been several games this season when we could have won a game just by making our free throws.

“We did do a better job with our pressure on defense and with our transition defense. Rock Hill has some good athletes and they run the floor well.”

On Thursday, Symmes Valley visits Western in a Southern Ohio Conference I game. Rock Hill plays at Portsmouth Notre Dame next Monday.

Rock Hill 17 22 5 10 = 54

Sym. Valley 13 16 15 21 = 65

ROCK HILL (6-11): Kaci Russell 7 0 4-6 18, Brook Knipp 5 0 4-10 14, Katie Johnson 4 0 0-0 8, Madison Damron 1 1 0-0 5, Sami Dillon 2 0 0-0 4, Tommi Butler 1 0 1-2 3, Lindy Simpson 1 0 0-0 2, Sarah Travis 0 0 0-0 0, Brooklyn Massie 0 0 0-0 0, Kelsey Blagg 0 0 0-0 0, Sabrina Henderson 0 0 0-0 0. Totals: 21 1 9-18 54. Fouls: 24. Fouled out: Johnson, Russell, Simpson.

SYMMES VALLEY (8-11): Kalli Hunt 5 0 2-3 12, Kaitlyn Payne 4 0 3-10 11, Merranda Hayes 3 0 3-7 9, Sarah Crabtree 4 0 0-0 8, Gracie Waddell 3 0 2-7 8, Megan Johnson 0 0 6-7 6, Hannah Maynard 1 0 0-0 2, Kayla Hayes 3 0 1-1 7, Malenna Davis 0 0 0-0 0. Totals: 23 0 17-37 65. Fouls: 21. Fouled out: K. Hayes.