The Sto-Rox girls basketball team used a balanced attack to whip host Carlynton, 49-35, Tuesday night at the Cougars’ gym.
Rae Johnston and Kamiyah Thompson each scored 14 points for the Vikings, who improved to 2-1 with the victory, and Allie Dotson contributed 10.
Jocelyn Griffin paced Carlynton with 13 points and Shaunte Turner added nine for the Cougars, who were making their season debut.
Dotson and Johnston combined to score 11 of the Vikings’ 13 first-quarter points, as they built a 13-5 lead. Johnston and Thompson teamed to total 11 points in the second quarter for Sto-Rox, as it extended its advantage to 28-15 at halftime.
Carlynton made a run in the third quarter and pulled even at 30-30, but the Vikings slowly pulled away.
Sto-Rox coach Jeff Stuart said his team has shown improvement in each game.
“They moved the ball a heck of a lot better tonight – even better than they did Saturday,” he said. “The girls are starting to buy in to what we’re pushing out there. I’m proud of them – they played their butts off out there. Carlynton closed a little in the third quarter and I was thinking, ‘Don’t die on me now.’ But we held (Carlynton) to five points in the fourth quarter.”
Defensively, Stuart said, the Vikings played well. “We’re trying to get them ready for section play,” he said. “We were rotating from a 2-3 zone to man-to-man into a 1-3-1 trap, but we were having problems with the trap. We’ll work on that (Wednesday).”
Carlynton coach Frank Deutsch said his team’s slow start was a major factor, but he added that the Cougars showed character by battling back in the third quarter to tie the score.
“But all that energy we used to get back in the game wore us out at the end,” he said.
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