WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

The Cougars of Mount Vernon (12-17, 7-10) played spoiler to the Huntington women’s basketball team’s Senior Day by handing the hosts a 66-59 loss Saturday afternoon at Platt Arena. It was the Foresters’ final home game of the season with the loss dropping them to 9-18 overall, 4-13 in league play.

MVNU’s offensive rebounding was HU’s Achilles heel. The Cougars tracked down 18 of their own misses which they converted into 19 points which more than covered the difference in the game. It was further exacerbated in the final three minutes when the visitors retrieved five O boards which certainly factored into their win.

Despite the rebounding imbalance, the Foresters were still in the thick of it. No more than two possessions ever separated the two squads until the last 15 seconds when MVNU hit a pair of freebies to take a seven-point lead which proved the difference at the final buzzer.

In addition to nine stalemates, the lead changed back and forth 13 times with HU’s final advantage, 52-51, coming with 4:28 remaining on a spin move in the lane by Gabi Melby. While execution was a problem for Maggard and crew over the next two minutes which allowed MVNU to reclaim a lead of 56-52, Melby cashed in on her second long ball of the quarter to trim HU’s disparity to just one.

After the Cougars went 1-for-2 at the line, Alli Vaughn slipped past her defender for an easy bucket down low to force the game’s final deadlock. MVNU made five more trips to the charity stripe in the final 1:16 where they canned eight of their ten tries to gradually pull away for the win. The fourth quarter saw the visitors go 14-for-19 from the line while HU finished 2-for-4 from the line in the final ten minutes.

Konnor Gambrell posted 15 points and seven rebounds to lead HU in both categories. Vaughn added 11 points while Melby tossed in nine, eight of which came in the final six minutes of play.

Madelyn Lawson poured in 15 points to lead the Cougars. Peyton Davis put up 12 points. Sage Brannon finished with 11 points and 12 boards for the double double while Rylee Pireu collected ten points to round out Mount Vernon’s double digit scoring.

The Foresters wrap up the regular season on Wednesday with a trip to Goshen.