Golden Falcon girls fall behind, can't catch up

By Ken Fine
Published in Sports on February 5, 2014 1:48 PM

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PIKEVILLE -- Their newly implemented offense, at last, clicking, the Charles B. Aycock Lady Falcons dominated the second half against D.H. Conley Tuesday evening.

But coach Ryan Wells said his team simply didn't have enough time to dig its way out of the 17-point hole they found themselves in at the beginning of the third quarter.

"We needed about two more (minutes)," he said.

The Falcons (5-14 overall, 1-7 Eastern Carolina Conference) fell to the Lady Vikings 51-44, despite an 18-point outing from Taylor Daniels and a double-double -- 11 points, 17 rebounds -- from Myleah Jones.

And other than those two standout performances, Wells said his team beat itself by missing "easy" opportunities to score the basketball in the first 16 minutes of play.

"We struggled early in the game. That's been an Achilles heel for us all year, free throws and missing bunnies -- short-range jump shots and wide open layups," he said. "But the effort was there, and as long as our effort is there and we can put up 31 points in a second half and hold a D.H. Conley to five in the fourth quarter ... if that carries over, we've got a good shot (moving forward)."

In many ways, D.H. Conley's performance was a mirror image of Aycock's.

The team went cold in the second half -- particularly in the fourth quarter where it was outscored 16-5 -- after dominating the first two quarters.

But thanks to the clutch shooting of two of its players -- Madison Maloney was the Vikings' leading scorer with 16 and LaVivica Wilson added 14 -- the team had just enough to hold off the surging Falcons.

With the win, D.H. Conley moved to 13-6 overall and 6-2 in the conference.