It’s becoming clearer each game that the Harlan County Lady Bears are growing up, even if it’s a slow process. The Lady Bears claimed perhaps their biggest win of the season Tuesday with a 56-47 victory over visiting Leslie County, the 14th Region’s No. 1 team, according to the RPI ratings used by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association.
The Lady Bears trailed by nine midway through the third quarter, then cut it to four going into the fourth quarter. Freshman point guard Jaycee Simpson hit 3-pointers on the first three possessions of the fourth quarter to put the Lady Bears on top for good.
“Simpson hit three big shots and we fed off that,” Harlan County coach Gary Greer said. “It’s amazing what happens when you hit shots. You start moving faster and going after balls harder. I’m proud of the them. We get down 10 last year we fold, This is a really big win to beat a solid team.”
Simpson scored 20 points to lead the 8-7 Lady Bears, but several others played big roles in the win. Eighth grader Taylynn Napier had a basket and four straight free throws to help put the game away. Sophomore guard Kylee Runions had the biggest basket of the night when she drove baseline for a layup on an out of bounds play with HC clinging to a two-point lead.
“We have a counter off our regular side out,” Greer said. “They obviously had watched some film and called our play out, so we ran our counter. I told Runions I didn’t want anything but a layup, and that was a big play that put us up by four. We were able to spread them out and force them to foul. We hit some foul shots. It was really a team effort, and I’m tickled to death. Runions hit some shots. I thought (Raegan) gave us some big minutes, and Napier played well with the game on the line. Jaylee kept us in it early. Reagen (Clem) handled the ball really well.”
Both offense struggled early as the game was tie 9-9 after one quarter with HCHS going up 18-17 at halftime.
Leslie went on a 12-0 run in the third quarter to go up 29-20 before Harlan County fought back with Simpson converting a three-point play and Runions hitting two 3s.
Senior guard Ava Napier scored 14 points to lead the 14-5 Lady Eagles. Natalie Banks and Peyton Hoehstetler added 12 and 11 points, respectively.
“We beat a well coached and really good team,” Greer said. “We knew we didn’t play very well the first half, but they had a lot to do that,. Once we settled down and ran our stuff like we do every day in practice we played a lot better. We didn’t run down some rebounds the first half and did a poor job of guarding the high post.
“We’ve gotten tougher lately. We’ve had some old-school coach (Mike) Jones practices lately and that helped us a lot. We didn’t come up with all the loose balls but we at least went after them, and I can take that.”
Harlan County plays host to Middlesboro on Friday in a girls/boys district doubleheader.
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Leslie County edged the Lady Bears 45-44 in junior varsity action.
Emma Caudill scored 15 points and Kenley Napier added 13 for the Lady Eagles.
Kenadee Sturgill and Taylynn Napier led the 3-4 Lady Bears with 18 and 12 points, respectively. Raegan Landa scored six. Shasta Brackett and Khloe Carr tossed in four points each.