Wildcat use big second quarter to pull away from Anderson County

Louisburg junior Nathan Parker pulls up for a shot Friday at home against Anderson County. Parker led the Wildcats in scoring with 10 points.

Just a couple days after its first loss of the season, Louisburg had a chance to quickly make amends Friday when it hosted Anderson County.

The Wildcats used a big second quarter to do just that.

Louisburg scored 18 points in the frame, which led to a big halftime lead and the Wildcats were able to hold on for a 44-37 victory over the Bulldogs.

Still down a couple players who were out with an injury, the Wildcats (2-1) made the best of a bad situation

“With the injuries that we have had, we are doing well so far,” Louisburg coach Ben Doll said. “I think once we get everyone healthy, I think we are going to be in pretty good shape. We have to get a lot better at things. We are playing some odd lineups, and we have some young guys in there right now that haven’t played varsity before. But it was good to see us bounce back from Tuesday’s loss.”

Louisburg took a 10-6 lead after one quarter of play, but the offense started to click in the second. The Wildcats outscored Anderson County 18-6 and took a 28-12 lead at halftime.

The lead ballooned to 20 early in the third quarter, before Anderson County started to chip away.

Anderson County deployed a zone defense to try and slow down the Wildcats — and while it worked early — Louisburg found a lot of success against it in the second quarter.

“We needed to do that, just for our confidence a little bit,” Doll said. “We struggled against a 1-3-1 earlier in the year, and then when they went zone, we started to play a little fast. However, once we started to calm down, things got better. Teams are going to see on film that we struggle with zone, so it was good to see our guys have success against it.”

The Wildcats got production from up and down their lineup as seven different players scored. Senior Nathan Parker led the way with 10 points and senior Brock Vohs added nine.

Louisburg also dominated in the rebounding department. Junior Conlee Hovey had a team-high 11 rebounds to go along with seven points, while junior Gavin Lohse had 10 rebounds — 8 offensive — and eight points.

Senior Jaymes Melton also came off the bench to pull down five rebounds.

Sophomore Derek Frederick played his first varsity minutes as he came off the bench to help the Wildcats on the perimeter. He also knocked down a 3-pointer.

Senior Brady Hickey also contributed a lot of minutes at the point and had a team-high three steals to go along with four rebounds and four points.

“We did some good stuff for a while, but we are just struggling right now in taking care of the basketball against certain kinds of pressure,” Doll said. “We are trying to play a little too fast. However, not having two perimeter guys all week certainly hasn’t helped. Still, we have had some other guys step up in Derek Frederick and we asked him to play some heavy minutes in there, especially on defense. 

“Brady has been a steady point guard since those other guys have been gone. We did some good things. We scored well at times, got a lot of rebounds and I was happy that a lot of our bigger guys like Conlee, Gavin, Jaymes and Brock were hitting the boards hard.”

Anderson County tried to make things interesting late as the Bulldogs outscored Louisburg 25-16 in the second half, but the Wildcats held on for their second win of the year.

“I think the guys were pretty tuned in to the game, but I don’t think we did a good job of valuing the ball very much,” Doll said. “When we’re sloppy, I don’t think it was a lack of focus or anything, I think we were just trying to do too much.”

Louisburg will have its toughest test of the season Tuesday when it travels to state-ranked Baldwin. The Bulldogs, who are 3-0 to start the year, are currently ranked No. 7 in Class 4A.

LOU 10 18 11 5 — 44

AC 6 6 14 11 — 37

LOUISBURG (2-1): Nathan Parker 3-14 2-2 10; Brock Vohs 4-7 0-1 9; Gavin Lohse 4-13 0-0 8; Conlee Hovey 2-5 3-4 7; Brady Hickey 2-4 0-2 4; Jaymes Melton 1-4 1-2 3; Derek Frederick 1-1 0-0 3. Totals: 17-51 6-11 44. 3-point field goals: 4, (Parker 2, Vohs, Frederick)