Pg. A10 The Mt. Vernon Signal Thursday, January 11, 2007

Junior J.J. Barnett and senior Coty Childress are ready tofight for a rebound in Tuesday night’s Rocket loss toSomerset. Childress scored 13 points Tuesday night and acareer high 30 on Friday night at Casey County.

Senior Devin Hasty scores 2 of his 8 points in Tuesday night’sgame against Somerset.

Matt Lunsford, #23 looks for help from Grant Burdette inSaturday’s freshmen win over Casey County. Lunsford had2 points and Burdette, 8 in the 48-44 win.

Dustin Poynter puts up a contested shot in Saturday’s 52-39 junior varsity win over Casey County.

Although she is shown getting her shot blocked, freshmenAngie Lawrence scored 15 points in the Lady Rocket loss toCasey County on Saturday to lead her team in scoring.

Sophomore Jillisa Lay, forefront, looks for an open LadyRocket in the junior varsity game against Casey County onSaturday. The Lady Rockets lost 43-42. In the backgroundis sophomore Sarah McKinney.

Sophomore Katy Mattingly puts in two of her six points inthe Lady Rocket win over Somerset on Tuesday night. Inthe background is sophomore Mary Saylor, who scored eightpoints in the 57-49 win over Somerset. Saylor also had 11against Casey County on Friday night. The Lady Rocketsand Rockets host Pulaski County on Friday night.

Defeat Casey Co. and Somerset

Lady Rocketsgain upper handin 47th district

By: Richard AnderkinAlthough the Lady Rockets

have yet to play the Lady Ma-roons of Pulaski County theyare in the driver’s seat in the47th district.

This week the Lady Rocketspicked up two district wins withvictories over Casey County 53-37 on Friday night andSomerset, 57-49 Tuesday night.

The Lady Rockets, who arenow 8-7 on the year and stillranked number two in the 12thregion, took the opening tipagainst Casey County and neverlooked back.

The Lady Rockets wereahead by only six at half-time,but Christi Noble’s squadturned up the offensive heat inthe second half, outscoring theLady Rebels 32-22.

The Lady Rockets leadingscorer, junior Sarah Rowe got23 of the Lady Rockets 53points and also had six reboundson the night.

Point guard Mary Saylor hada good floor game and scored11 points, eighth grader SaraHammond had 8, TonyaLunsford 6 and Jillisa Lay andKaty Mattingly each scored twopoints.

On Tuesday night the LadyBriar Jumpers of Somersetcame to the ROCK and gave theLady Rockets all they wantedin front of a large crowd.

At half-time the Lady Rock-ets were behind 27-25 but theirman-to-man half court defensein the second half proved toomuch for the visiting team.

‘I think our tough scheduleearly in the season has helpedour younger players to not panicwhen they get behind,” Noblesaid.

“They know if they play hardand play their game, they havea chance to win every nightout,” she said.

Sara Hammond and SarahRowe led seven Lady Rocketsin scoring Tuesday night with

15 each.Saylor had 8, Mattingly and

Ashley Robinson each got 6,Tonya Lunsford, 4 and twin sis-ter Sonya 2.

The Lady Rockets take their3-0 district record back into dis-trict play on Friday night whenthey host the Lady Maroons, ateam they defeated twice lastyear. Game time at the ROCKis 6 p.m.

Lady RocketJV lose two

The Rockcastle County LadyRocket junior varsity team losttwo games this week, first toSomerset last Tuesday and toCasey County on Saturday.

The junior varsity scoredonly one point in the first quar-ter against Somerset on theirway to a 39-25 loss.

Ashley Robinson and JackieAlexander led six Lady Rock-ets in scoring with 7 each.

Jillisa Lay had 5 and AngieLawrence, Nicole Locklear andMorgan Collins all had twopoints.

The Lady Rocket J.V.’s lostby only one point, 43-42, onSaturday to the Lady Rebels ofCasey County.

The contest saw several leadchanges with the Lady Rocketsdown by one at half-time andthree at the end of the third pe-riod.

Sophomore Morgan Collinsled the scoring with 16,Robinson got 13, Lawrence 5,Jackie Alexander 4, and MeganMazurek 2.

The Lady Rocket JV teamplays at home on Saturdayagainst South Laurel at 11 a.m.

Freshmendrop two

The Lady Rocket freshmenteam have also lost two games

Lady Rocket Sarah Rowe, right, had 15 points and AshleyRobinson, left, had 6 in the Lady Rocket win over Somerseton Tuesday night. The Lady Rockets are 3-0 in district playand ranked number two in the 12th region.

(Cont. to A12)

In district action

Rockets loseto Rebels andBriar Jumpers

By: Richard AnderkinThe dismal season of 2006-

07 continues for the RockcastleCounty Rocket varsity basket-ball team, after two districtlosses in the past week.

Tuesday night the Rocketsgot off to a slow start againstthe Somerset Briar Jumpers,scoring only 16 points in thefirst half and finding themselvesdown, 30-16.

Offensively things got a lotbetter for the Rockets in the sec-ond half, when they put 29points on the board, but theygave-up 30 to the Jumpersmainly because of a press thatdid not work for a final score of60-45.

The Rockets are 2-7 since de-feating Somerset in their firstmeeting 53-51 and again onTuesday night poor shootingand almost no rebounding,spelled doom for the Rockets.

“At times we played hard andother times we looked like wedidn’t know we were on thebasketball court,” head coachBenny Blanton said.

The Rockets, who are aver-aging over 21 turnovers pergame, outdid their season aver-age on Tuesday night with 23turnovers.

“We have done everythingwe know to do to emphasize theimportance of taking care of thebasketball and obviously noth-ing has worked so far,” Blantonsaid.

And in all fairness to Blantonand his coaching staff, theRockets are not only turning theball over, when they do get anopen shot, they can’t find thebottom of the basket.

The Rockets, who are 3-11on the season, are shooting 35percent from the field, 23 per-cent from three point range andonly 58 percent from the freethrow line.

Tuesday night, the Rocketsleading scorer Coty Childressled the way again with 13,Lance Baldwin had 9, Tanner

Perkins and Devin Hasty eachhad 8, Jake Woodall 4, Chan-dler Hunter 3 and DerrickThacker 1.

Casey 83ROCK 59

Senior Coty Childress’s 30points weren’t enough on Fri-day night as the Rockets losttheir 10th game of the season,83-59 to the Casey CountyRebels.

The loss evened the Rocketsdistrict record at 1-1 for the timebeing, before the loss toSomerset on Tuesday night.

Again the Rockets wereplagued with turnovers, com-mitting 22 in the contest, whichwas played in Liberty.

The Rockets were down byseven at half-time, but wereoutscored 21-6 in the third pe-riod and the Rebels and Rock-ets simply traded baskets in thefourth period for the final score.

Beside’s Childress’s seasonand career high 30 points, fiveother Rockets got into the scor-ing column. Woodall had 11,Hasty 8, Perkins and J.J. Barnett4 each and Hunter 2.

The Rockets next game isFriday night when they playhost to Pulaski County in an-other district game.

The Rockets will play thesecond game of a double headerwith the girls, who tip things offat 6 p.m. at the ROCK.

J.V. win twoThe Rockcastle County jun-

ior varsity boy’s team won twogames in the past week withwins over Casey County on Sat-urday and Southwestern Pulaskion Monday night, leveling theirseason record at 6-6.

The junior varsity beat CaseyCounty, 52-39, in one of fourgames played at RockcastleCounty High School on Satur-day, between the Rockets and

(Cont. to A12)