BASKETBALL: Lady Panthers win West Frankfort Mid-Winter
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After suffering their first defeat since December 9th on Tuesday against tournament host West Frankfort, Pinckneyville responded by thumping Sesser-Valier 67-31 on Friday night to improve to 2-1 at the West Frankfort Mid-Winter Classic and eventually claim the tournament championship.
"It was nice to see the girls bounce back like they did tonight," said Lady Panthers' head coach Alan Engelhardt. "We had gotten after the girls pretty good the last couple of days after losing to West Frankfort, and they came out and showed how they were capable of playing again tonight."
Since Pinckneyville, West Frankfort and Herrin all three finished with 2-1 marks in the tournament, the trophy was awarded to the Lady Panthers based on free throw percentage.
PCHS jumped out in front 13-7 after the first quarter, but really started to get some seperation during the second and led 38-22 at the break.
"We did a pretty good job of getting out and running," Engelhardt said. "We probably did our best job of getting the ball up the sideline to our wings and playing off of them. After the start, we did a pretty good job of getting out into the passing lanes and not letting Sesser have anything easy."
Things got uglier for Sesser-Valier in the third, as PCHS outscored them 20-4 in the period to erase any doubts of the game's outcome.
"By the time we got into the third quarter, we had really locked them down and created separation," said Engelhardt.
"I was really pleased with Maddy Keith looking for her shot tonight, hitting 3 three-pointers as well as getting to the basket, and Taylor Cicardi was extremely efficient, scoring 23 points on 9 of 10 shooting from the field."
Cicardi was named the tournament's most valuable player and Keith joined her on the all-tournament team for Pinckneyville.
Keith finished with 17 points against Sesser-Valier, Lindsey Winter had 7, Taylor Kuhnert 4, Mo Ramsey and Tyler Flowers 3, and Heather McDaniel, Dani Jenkel, Emma Opp, Katelyn Mayer and Haley Simpson each finished with 2.
"I was also very happy that we only committed 8 turnovers on the night," Engelhardt added. "When we look to score and don't turn the ball over, we can do some things very well offensively. We played at our tempo and defended the ball well on the perimeter; those are the cornerstones of our team, and we did a great job of executing in those two areas."
The Lady Panthers (18-5) host a big Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference matchup on Tuesday night with Nashville.