Lady Greyhounds Fall to St. Louis CC

By Chuck Livingston
The Evening Times Sports Editor
MSCC Sports Information

During a rough opening stretch to their 2014-2015 season, the MSCC Lady Greyhounds have been without three starting guards, but things got worse last Saturday afternoon.

MSCC's (1-5 overall)  leading scorer and rebounder, Kierra Adams, was injured in a scramble for the ball a road loss last Tuesday and missed the Lady Greyhounds' game against St. Louis Community College.

Down those four players, MSCC couldn't score enough to keep up with their visitors from the Show-Me State, as the Lady Greyhounds fell to 1-5 with an 87-55 loss to the Lady Archers.

MSCC turned the ball over 26 more times, which is a lot, but less than the 44 that they committed against Northeast Mississippi in their previous game.

"We know that we're going to struggle with our guard play until we get Sasha (Giles), Victoria (Broady) and Elexa (Guy) back," MSCC head coach Andy Stoglin said after the game. "Grades go in on December 10th and we expect them all to be back on December 11th. Today, they were about the best team that we've seen yet and we played with them after letting them go on a run in the first half that kinda sunk us."

That run was a 24-6 spurt that began with St. Louis ahead just 8-6 with less than six minutes gone in the ballgame and the Lady Archers were able to carry a 47-28 lead to halftime after forcing 11 first half turnovers from MSCC, while also hitting the offensive glass hard for 10 second-chance opportunities in that frame.

The second half saw the Lady Greyhounds hang within 20 points during most of the way, before explosive guard Deborah Holcomb went on a personal 10-2 run late in the half, as part of a 15-point second half scoring barrage that eventually buried MSCC for good.

"It's tough for us to lose Kierra because we're already so small," Stoglin explained when asked about his versatile sophomore post player. "On top of that, this team was pretty big, the biggest team that we've seen so far, and without guards and without Kierra, we struggled."

MSCC got a team-high 15 points from Ivory Thornton, as well as 10 points apiece from Earle native Lacordia Williams and Dominique Dillard. The Lady Greyhounds were led in rebounding by Sherelle McGowan's nine boards, but nobody else finished with more than five.

In addition to Holcomb's game-high 22 points, St. Louis got 19  from Khalia Miller.

The Lady Greyhounds will host their own tipoff classic this weekend when they host Meridian Community College on Friday and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M on Saturday at The Dog House with a 6 p.m. tip for the former and 2 p.m. for the latter.