Beech Tree News Network

The Butler County Lady Bears traveled back to McLean County High School on Monday night for the second round of the Touchstone Energy Partners All "A" Classic. After beating Edmonson County 50-48 on Saturday, the Lady Bears would be taking on the home town McLean County Lady Cougars who had the bye in round one.

McLean County opened up a 5-0 lead to start the game before BCHS responded. However when the Lady Bears responded they jumped on the Lady Cougars and took early control of the game. Madeline Drake and Katie Graham each hit three pointers for the Lady Bears to retake the lead. Combined in the period Graham and Drake had 15 points with Shawna West chipping in 4 points as the Lady Bears took a 19-17 lead after a quarter.

Despite the strong quarter the Lady Bears were still having trouble controlling the scoring of Hannah Render and Sydney Rice. Both girls proved to be deadly for long range as their shooting kept McLean in the ballgame in the second period. For BCHS, Katie Graham continued her strong play. Using feeds from her teammates and her own rebounds and drives, Graham scored 12 in the first half to lead all scorers and the two teams went into the locker room tied at 28-28 at halftime.

The second half opened with a run for McLean County. The Lady Cougars opened the second half on a 8-0 run before Koshosha Turner got a basket for the Lady Bears. Graham added 6 points for the Lady Bears in the period, but McLean County outscored BCHS 12-8 in the quarter to take a 40-36 lead into the fourth period.

McLean County’s Rice saved her best effort for the final period. Rice connected on 11 out of 12 free throws in the period and had 14 points in the fourth quarter. For BCHS Katie Graham continued to dominate in the paint. Graham had 16 second half points to go along with a strong rebounding performance to lead the Lady Bears with her career high 28-points. However it wasn’t enough to counter 29 points from Rice and the Lady Cougars beat the Lady Bears to advance to the 3rd Region All "A" finals by a score of 60-52.

The Lady Bears will be back in action on Friday night at home when they host South Warren in a boy/girl doubleheader. The BCHS Bears will travel to McLean County on Tuesday night for their round two matchup with the McLean County Cougars. The Bears will tip at 6:00 and the game will be broadcast live on AM 1570 WLBQ beginning at 5:50. The game can also be streamed live on Beechtreenews.com by clicking on the radio icon at the top of the page.

BUTLER COUNTY SCORING (Unofficial)
Graham-28, Drake-14, West-6, Turner-4

Score by quarter
BCHS        19     9       8    16    52
MCHS        17    11    12    20    60

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Story by Joe K. Morris, Beech Tree News