Hornets score early & often

Tuesday night marked the annual ‘Playing for a Cure’ breast cancer awareness game that this year featured Wilson Memorial.

Getting off to a slow start, the Bison could not overcome the 15-1 hole dug over the first eight minutes, and fell 65-41 to the Green Hornets.

“Wilson did a great job jumping on us early and made it difficult for us to battle back,” Gap coach Chad Coffey said. “For us it’s been common lately. Our last three games we’ve struggled to get out of gate.”

The Hornets found five scorers in the quarter who accounted for all 15 points.

“I thought the girls did a great job to rise above the emotion of the ‘awareness’ night tonight,” Wilson coach Jackie Bryan said. “We knew coming in that we needed to get out early, score early, and get rebounds early to win tonight.”

The Bison offense finally found life in the second quarter with 13 points, but were still outscored 15-11 in the quarter to trail 30-12 at halftime.

Senior Bison Courtney Woods and sophomore Megan Hedrick both took advantage of space in the paint in the second, netting nine of those 13 points.

“We’re just trying to learn and get to the points where we make our investments pay off. We’re playing hard and we’re trying to define ourselves as a team,” Coffey said.

Sophomore Abby Erskine totaled 10 points to lead all scorers for the Bison, while senior Morgan Houle had eight.

Gap’s best quarter was the last, including a 7-0 run midway through to cut the lead from 22 to 15.

“Once we settled down though, I thought we did a great job of coming back. I told them that we were going to be intense and that we were going to respond,” Coffey said.

Sophomore Kayley Argenbright led the way for Wilson, recording a game-high 18 points, while teammates Whitney Harris, Megan Swortzel and Molly Huss all tallied double-figure scoring as well.

“I would’ve liked to take care of the ball a little better, but Gap is a scrappy team and they do a good job of making turnovers happen,” Bryan said.

Gap (3-15, 2-10 Shenandoah District) will travel to Riverheads on Thursday, while the Hornets (8-10, 4-8 Shenandoah District) will host Luray on Friday night.