Rock Hill girls basketball finishes region unblemished

The No. 1 ranked Rock Hill girls raced out to a sizeable lead after one quarter and coasted from there to defeat the Northwestern Trojans 79-35 Thursday night at Northwestern.

The win completed a perfect 12-0 region season for the 3-4A champions. Rock Hill swept the Trojans, who they have had a hard time getting by in past years, in beating them by 48 and 44 points this season.

The Bearcats (22-2) will start the playoffs next week at home. Kendall Lahr and RiKoya Anderson each had 13 to lead Rock Hill and T. Ballard had 10.

Turning point

After Northwestern’s NaNa Jones scored the first bucket of the game, the Bearcats ran off 12 unanswered and breezed to a 23-6 lead after one quarter. T. Ballard had nine of Rock Hill’s last 11 points of the period, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer.

Critical

The Trojans had only two baskets from the field in the first half. They were 11-of-14 from the free-throw line to account for their 15 points at the half. Rock Hill put four players in double figures scoring and prevented the Trojans from having a double-figure scorer. The only quarter Northwestern scored in double figures as a team was the fourth when they had 11.

Star contributors

Kendall Lahr had the first eight points of the second half for the Bearcats and, with 13 for the game, shared the team lead in scoring with RiKoya Anderson. Monique Stevenson had 12 and T. Ballard had 10. Cayley Howell led Northwestern with seven.

Overheard

“They’ve been the gold standard,” Rock Hill coach Kenny Orr said of Northwestern.

“We embrace (number one ranking) but now we can’t say people don’t pay attention to us. We have the bulls-eye on our back.” - Orr on ranking

On deck

Rock Hill will be the top seed out of Region 3-4A and begin the Class 4A playoffs next week.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 9:30 PM with the headline "Rock Hill girls basketball finishes region unblemished."