Yazoo County and J.Z. George were forced into action on Saturday to make-up the game that was canceled earlier in the week due to perilous, icy conditions.
Both the Panthers and Lady Panthers came out of the contest with a win.
Panthers 70,
Jaguars 40
Utilizing a big first half lead, the Panthers cruised to a 70-40 win over J.Z. George.
The victory improved the Panthers’ record to 2-1 in the conference, good for second place.
The Panthers pounced in the first, outscoring the Jaguars 15-8.
In the second quarter, Yazoo County expanded their lead dramatically by outscoring the Jaguars 20-6 to make it a 35-14 game at the half.
With a chance to take a big leap in the district standings, Yazoo County took advantage of the situation by putting the game out of reach in the third quarter by outscoring the Jaguars 20-14, making it a 55-28 game with only a quarter left to play.
Despite having full control of the game, the Panthers did not fully let off the gas in the fourth quarter, putting up 15 to J.Z. George’s 12 to bring the final score to 70-40.
Lady Panthers 68,
Lady Jaguars 6
The Lady Panthers of Yazoo County utterly destroyed J.Z. George’s Lady Jaguars by a score of 68-6.
The win brought the Lady Panthers’ record to 10-6 on the season.
While the win was impressive, Yazoo County coach Patrick Nutter did not believe they gained all that much from it.
“It is hard to gauge anything from a game like that,” Nutter said. “It is good to get a district win, but that’s about all you get. We had been out a lot because of the break then the weather, so it was good to get back onto the court.”
In the first quarter of play, it was all Yazoo County. Nutter’s squad jumped on the Lady Jaguars early and often, outscoring them 20-5 by the time the buzzer sounded.
The Lady Panthers just poured it on the Lady Jaguars in the second quarter, outscoring them 18-1 to take a commanding 38-6 lead into the half.
The Lady Jaguars were completely shut out in the second half of play, an incredible feat by Yazoo County’s defense.
In the third quarter, the Lady Panthers outscored them 14-0, and in the fourth quarter, they outscored them 16-0 to bring the final score to 68-6.
Nutter simply didn’t have an answer as to why the game got so out-of-hand.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Nutter said of the second half shutout. “I don’t know that I’ll ever see that again. I’m not sure what the deal was. I don’t know if they were missing some girls or if they didn’t want to be playing on a Saturday or what.”
According to Nutter, the plan was never to embarrass their competition.
They simply took advantage of plays that fell into their laps.
“I didn’t want to embarrass them or anything like that,” Nutter said. “I never got out of a half court set. I didn’t press, and they ran the clock the whole second half. They kept trying to throw cross-court passes, and we would pick them off and make layups. We were missing two players, so we only had nine players. We had to keep one starter in don the stretch due to how few players we had.”
Ke’Anna Norwood led the Lady Panthers with 13 points in the victory.
Aquasia Edwards and Chloe Edwards each put up 12 points and hit two 3-pointers in the winning effort.
Akeriunna Frierson was also in double digits with 10 points in the win.
The Panthers and Lady Panthers will be traveling for all three games for the remainder of the week.
The first was at Amanda Elzy on Tuesday night.
The next two will be a makeup game at Charleston on Thursday night, followed by a rematch with J.Z. George on Friday night.
Nutter feels that the travel will difficult, making the games more difficult.
“The travel is going to be tough,” Nutter said. “Charleston is quite a drive. We won’t get home until very late that night. Then we have to suit up and travel the next night. I don’t expect the rematch with J.Z. George to be a very easy game.”
