In the Lady Pirates’ second consecutive game without their head coach, the Platte County girls’ basketball team (3-7) was on the verge of upsetting Raytown South (9-2) but came up short 45-33 on Jan. 6.
Without head coach Rebecca Mills – who was unavailable due to Covid-19 guidelines – the Pirates’ assistant coach Katlyn Donovan was in charge of coaching duties. Donovan helped lead the Pirates to a victory over Ruskin on Jan. 4, but in her third career game as an acting head coach, a strong second half offensive performance by the Cardinals was too much for the Pirates to overcome.
Reese Pickett, above, had four steals in Platte County’s 45-33 home loss to Raytown South on Jan. 6.
“They’re a great team; they are nice and fast and do a lot of good things on offense,” Platte County interim coach Katlyn Donovan said. “We struggled at the free throw line a bit and missed some bunnies, but I told the girls I was proud of them for the way they fought back.”
Platte County’s offense wasn’t clicking early on as Raytown South scored the first seven points of the contest. With 3:36 remaining in the first quarter, Joslynn Hupp dished the ball off to Reese Pickett who scored a layup to ignite a 7-2 run to close out the period.
Raytown South led by two points entering the second quarter, but Amaira Peterson gave Platte County its first lead, 13-11, with 6:09 remaining in the half. From that point on in the opening half, a bucket from Pickett was the only basket the Pirates made, and they trailed the Cardinals 19-15 at the break.
“It was just a little bit of a slow start offensively, but we battled back in the second quarter. We responded really well and did a good job of getting out of their press and making them switch to man-to-man,” Donovan said.
The Cardinals extended their margin to 10 points halfway through the third period, but a pair of baskets from Kiersten Robbins and Hupp narrowed the deficit to 27-21 entering the fourth quarter. Raytown South held onto its lead in the final frame and sank shots from the charity stripe in the closing minutes to pull out the victory.
“I think that just shows that they are a good team; we would score a bucket and they would counter with a bucket of their own. I don’t want to say it was a lack of us defensively, it was just a good team executing well against us,” Donovan said.