With Polk down 36-20 to Mountain Heritage at halftime Thursday, Jan. 24 it looked as if the Lady Wolverines were headed for a lopsided loss.

But they came back with a great effort and cut the lead down to single digits. The final score ended at 66-59, but if there was ever a case to call a game a moral victory this one would classify.

“We started out slow and only scored 20 points in the first half,” said Coach Craig Culbreth. “The good thing was; we did not quit and we outscored them by nine points in the second half. We came back and made a ballgame out of it. We made a great run; we were down by 20 and I think we got it down to 6 at one time.”

Mountain Heritage had a height advantage with several of their players. This allowed them to get several easy baskets and particularly “second chance baskets,” where they missed their initial shot but got the rebound and put it back from close range.

“Of course it hurt not having Savannah (out due to injury) especially for rebounds. They are a good team; they have only lost one game (18-1). (That’s) a pretty good team and we hung with them. (It shows) we are getting better,” Culbreth said.

Coach Culbreth was optimistic about the Lady Wolverines’ next game against Mitchell, which they lost to previously by only 6 points, 50-44 at home.

“Mitchell will be a big game for us, they beat us the first time, but we hope to get them this time, we are playing much better ball right now,” he said.

Game Stats

Mountain Heritage 66, Polk County 59

Polk: 12, 8, 16, 23 – 59

Mtn. Heritage: 19; 17; 15; 15 – 66

Polk –  Hayley Kropp 22, Flood 10, Overholt 10, Brown 9, Ruff 4, Phipps 4

Records: Polk, 10-9, 4-5. Heritage, 18-1, 7-1 WHC.

Next game: Tuesday, Jan. 29 at Mitchell.