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AMERICUS – The Sumter County Lady Panthers (SCHS) came into Tuesday night’s home game against Dodge County (DC) with an overall record of 15-7 and a Region 1-AA record of 8-1. The Lady Squaws, on the other hand, came into the game with an 18-3 overall record and a 9-1 Region 1-AA record. Something had to give. Thanks to some solid defense played by the Lady Panthers throughout the game, they were able to defeat the Lady Squaws by the score of 37-23 at the Panther Pit.

“It was a tough task,” SCHS Head Coach Sherri Harris said. “I thought we played some tremendous defense on the big girl. She’s a great player. As I told the girls all week, we’re not trying to stop her because you can’t stop a great player. You’ve got to just control her. We’ve got to make the other girls on the team beat us. I can’t even recall throughout the game the other girls knocking down any open shots. I think they got going early in the third quarter and made a run right there.”

Harris was referring to DC center Lyric Green, who caused some problems for the Lady Panthers on the inside. Green led the Lady Squaws with 15 points.

Jesstynie Scott led the Lady Panthers in scoring with 16 points and D’Eria Clark had nine in the winning cause.

The Lady Panthers jumped out to a 16-7 lead in the first quarter and would extend their lead to 24-11 at halftime. In the second half, they continued to hold the Lady Squaws’ offense in check and by the time the horn sounded to end the game, the Lady Panthers had a 37-23 victory.

With the win, SCHS improves its overall record to 16-7 and they are in first place in the Region 1-AA standings with a record of 9-1. They will travel down to Sylvester on Thursday to take on Worth County. Tip off is scheduled for 6 p.m.