Lady Titans Secure District’s Top Seed With Win Over West

Jared Holt

Herald Staff

sports@harrodsburgherald.com

The Lady Titans basketball team proved they are still the top dog of the 46th District by securing the No. 1 seed by defeating the Lady Colts of West Jessamine on the road Saturday night, 71-49. It was Mercer’s fifth straight  win despite the absence of their starting point guard Catheryne Claunch who’s missed the last five games due to a knee injury. 

“We’ve had two players, Seygan Robins and Madaline Bartley, who have really stepped up and played well for us in those five games,” said Mercer Head Coach Chris Souder on his teams ability to keep winning despite missing their starting point guard. 

“I really challenged her (Bartley) when Catheryne (Claunch) went out because she hadn’t played that many minutes, but she has been really solid in her play. Getting all these players some extra time is just going to make us a better basketball team when we get Catheryne back in the next couple of weeks.”

Mercer opened the game smoking from three point range, hitting six in the opening quarter helping give them a 28-12 lead after eight minutes of  play. Senior Cassidy Martin led the Lady Titans with four of those three pointers, putting up 14 in the period. Martin finished with a game high 24 despite limited playing time. 

“I think we’ve hit double digit three pointers in our last four or five games so we’re going to shoot a bunch of them,” said Souder. “We’ve got kids that can shoot and there are times we get mad, but have to laugh at ourselves because we think we should be shooting more of them instead of driving to the basket.”

Mercer continued to hit three pointers at a high rate and finished the game shooting 55 percent, 13-24, with seven different Lady Titans hitting at least one.