Conley Leads Baylor To 62-29 Romp Over GPS

Sophomore Scores 15 Of Her 26 Points In First Quarter As Lady Raiders Roll

  • Saturday, December 15, 2018
  • John Hunt

The Baylor girls basketball team went to Nashville last weekend where they lost a pair of games, a close one to Harpeth Hall and the other not so close to Ensworth.  Needless to say, coach John Gibson wasn’t very happy with what he saw.

The veteran coach returned to the practice floor on Monday where he put his girls through some tough practices this week and got his point across about how he wanted them to perform.

All of that extra work paid off at Baylor’s Jimmy Duke Arena and Austin Clark Court Saturday night with a 62-29 romp over arch-rival GPS.

Baylor improves to 4-6 overall and 1-2 in region play while the Bruisers fall to 6-4 overall and 0-2 in region contests.

“I never know what to expect from this group as they’re so young, but we had a tough week of practice after two losses last weekend and they responded in a positive way tonight,” Gibson said while standing outside the Baylor dressing room following the game.

“We made some adjustments this week and I thought we played hard tonight.  We did what we had worked on in practice.  I didn’t think we played very hard in Nashville, but we did tonight and got the results we were looking for,” he added.

Brooklyn Gordon scored Baylor’s first bucket before C.J. Polk tied it for the Bruisers with a layup at the 7:01 mark of the first quarter.

The Lady Red Raiders – more specifically sophomore Raegyn Conley – went on a 20-4 run and had a commanding 22-6 lead when the first stanza ended.

It never got any closer as that 16-point lead swelled to 37-15 at the half and 55-19 with one quarter remaining.

Gibson emptied his bench in the final eight minutes and the Lady Raiders only scored seven points, but the damage had been done and there was nothing the Bruisers could do about it.

GPS coach Janna Eichelberger certainly doesn’t like being on the short side of a whipping her team received, but she was upbeat and vowed that her team will keep working to get better.

“First of all, hats off to Baylor as they have a really good team and they played well tonight,” the first-year coach expressed.

“Our starting point guard got hurt and we’re trying to adjust, but I’m confident that we’ll bounce back.  I’m not at all pleased with the results tonight, but we didn’t give up.

“We just have to keep working.  The best news about basketball is you get another chance to play, but at the end of the day, these young ladies did all I asked to the best of their ability and I can live with that,” she added.

Conley scored 26 points to lead the Baylor attack, including 15 in the first quarter.  She was the only Baylor player in double figures.

Hayden Barton and Gordon both finished with nine points while Paige Gilbert followed with eight.

Polk was the GPS scoring leader with eight points.  Jaylah Love was next with six.

GPS did win the rebounding battle by an unofficial 21-19 margin.  Hannah Sanders had 10 for the Bruisers while Conley snagged seven for Baylor.

GPS  6  9  4  10  --  29

BAYLOR  22  15  18  7  --  62

GPS (29) – Ball, Warwick, Hubbard 4, Blevins 1, Reel, Polk 8, Henry 4, Love 6, Bohner 1, Moody 1, Sanders 4.

BAYLOR (62) – Cooper, White 2, Stack, Rostelli 2, Conley 26, Barton 9, Rye, Shamblin, Gordon 9, Collins 1, Johnson, Gilbert 8, McKnight 5.

3-POINT GOALS: GPS 1 (Henry); Baylor 6 (Conley 2, Barton 3, Gordon).

(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)

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