Turnovers sink Cyclones

By Irvin Goodwin - Herald correspondent

CHESTER � It was a defining moment for the Chester girls basketball team.

Despite a 13-1 record and 2-0 Region 4-AAA mark, the Lady Cyclones were not even ranked among the state's Class AAA top 10.

However, Chester had a golden opportunity to gain respect on Friday against the three-time defending state champs Lower Richland.

The Lady Cyclones put up a solid challenge, but were unable to match the offensive and defensive firepower of the Lady Diamonds, who pulled away with the 61-45 victory.

Lower Richland, who moved down in classification, frustrated the Chester girls with a smothering trapping defense, which forced 25 turnovers. Nine of those turnovers came in the third quarter when the Lady Diamonds more than doubled a 10-point halftime lead.

"To turn the ball over 25 times against a team like that, they will capitalize and score," Chester coach Marilyn Milton said. "You cannot afford to give that caliber of a team that many opportunities."

The Lady Diamonds, who feature the state's top recruit, Morgan Stroman, forced four turnovers on the first five Chester possessions of the third quarter. Before the blink of an eye, Chester found themselves staring at a 16-point deficit, 37-21, following an inside hoop from forward Ashley Edwards.

Chester guard Micah Wessinger netted a jumper, but Lower Richland reeled off 9 unanswered points to build a commanding 46-23 advantage late in the third. Stroman sank a jumper, powered inside for another hoop, then found a wide-open teammate, Jasmine Harrison, underneath for an open layup.

The Lady Cyclones, however, did not quit and put together a mini-run to cut the deficit to 20 after Wessinger netted six straight from the line with 5:40 remaining. But that was too much of a mountain to climb against the state's top-ranked team. Lower Richland remains undefeated at 13-0 overall and 4-0 in league play.

Milton said the Chester girls may not have made headlines by scoring the monumental upset. However, she did point out several positives to build on.

"We have to be patient running our offense," Milton said. "We do have young guards, but they had to understand that you have to be patient running the offense against a team on this level.

"We stayed focused throughout the contest, but may have gotten a bit rattled when a couple of calls did not go our way. Overall, we did not play terrible on defense even though we should have done a better job stopping their drives to the hoop. We just have to take this loss and learn from it."

The loss ends a 12-game winning streak for the Lady Cyclones, who are now 13-2 and 2-1 in the region.

Wessinger and forward Jasmine Sanders led Chester with 16 and 11 points, respectively.

Stroman, regarded as one of the nation's top players, led a balanced Lady Diamond attack with 13, followed by Harrison and Edwards with 12 each.

"We are still 2-1 and now, have a key game on Tuesday at A.C. Flora; we lost to a championship caliber team, but want to strengthen our hold on second place," Milton concluded.

Lower Richland 7 22 23 9 - 61

Chester 2 17 8 18 - 45