Photos by Dusty Butler
The Lady Spartans opened the Spartan Center for the year in a contest against Union on Tuesday evening. They made quick work against the Lady Cougars with their fast-pace play on both offense and defense. Emery continuously pushed the ball up the court and found easy scores before Union could set up defensively. On the other side of the ball, the Lady Spartans hustled back to set up their defense and stifled the Lady Cougar attack with active hands and sound techniques. Emery held Union to five points in the first quarter and lead by 18 at that point.
Union would score nine points in the second but Emery clapped down the next two quarters as the Lady Cougars again were held to five points in both the third and fourth quarters. The Lady Spartans notched their first win of the season in blowout fashion, 72-24.
Kiri Cook was disruptive down low. She had a team-high 13 points and six rebounds. Hailey Allred and Baylee Jacobson also reached double digits with 11 and 10 points respectively. 11 different Lady Spartans scored in the contest. One such player was freshman, Tatum Tanner who only played a handful of minutes but recorded six points and an outstanding six blocks in that span. Bethany Justice and Allred each had three steals while Emery compiled 13 as a team.
The Lady Spartans shot 49% from the floor, but struggled at the foul line. They converted on 46% of their free throws. That will surely be a point of emphasis for Lynn Tuttle’s crew moving forward. Other than that, Emery played an excellent game.
Emery has a quick turnaround as it will head to take on Beaver Wednesday night. Then the Lady Spartans come right back home to face Morgan on Thursday to finish a stretch of three games in three days. Both those games can be viewed on etvnews.com/livesports.
