Woodland GBB routs Perryville to continue hot start

Woodland High School’s girls basketball team tallied double figures in every period on its way to a 68-36 home win Nov. 26. Twenty-plus points in the third and fourth quarters distanced the home squad from the Pirates as WHS improved to 2-0 in the early portion of the 2024-25 season.

The Cardinals led 11-4 after the opening quarter and then took a 22-17 lead at halftime.

Woodland outscored PHS 26-14 in the third quarter in building a 48-31 advantage with just eight minutes remaining.

“I was afraid we might come out a little sluggish after playing back-to-back for the first time this year,” Woodland coach Paul Lynch said after the game. “Perryville came out, played aggressive. They’ve got a couple nice players. We just didn’t play crisp early on with a lot of emotion and it took us a little while to get going.”

Mallary Barks scored 16 to lead Woodland. Addy Massa scored 12 points.

Dezi Braswell sank three 3-pointers in finishing with nine points. Tallie Johnson collected eight points in the home victory. Ella Cook and Maci McIntyre both contributed seven points. Mollie Long made a first quarter field goal. Woodland was just 10-for-24 from the free throw line.

“We’ve got to keep growing and keep confident and remember that every possession is the most important one of the game,” Lynch said.

Woodland will take part in the Lady Red Devil Classic Dec. 7-12 in Chaffee. The Cardinals’ next home contest is not until Monday, Jan. 6, 2025.

“We had a really bad start to the game,” PHS head coach Jason Dreyer said. “We were really nervous you could tell the girls were missing some easy shots and layups. We were kind of behind the eight ball from the get go. After that, honestly we didn’t rebound very well and we had a ton of turnovers. We’ve practiced pretty hard these last three weeks and had some good competition in our practices. We’ve done those things in practice so I’m hoping that this was just a first game jitter type of thing and we will move past because I think we’ve got the talent to do it. Rebounding and taking care of the call really hurt us.

Perryville’s Abygail Amberger led all scorers with 20 points while teammate Zoe Hoehn finished with 10 points.

Perryville (0-1) returns to action Monday, Dec. 2, when it hosts Chaffee.