BASKETBALL: Lady Panthers stomped by Nashville
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Pinckneyville jumped out to a 7-2 lead, but their success was short-lived as Nashville handed the Lady Panthers a 46-12 loss at Thomas Gymnasium on Tuesday night, pushing PCHS a full three games behind the Hornettes in the Mississippi Division of the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference.
"Once Nashville took the lead on us, I really thought we quit," said Lady Panthers' head basketball coach Alan Engelhardt.
"I really would have liked to see us compete, and I am really disappointed that we let ourselves get beat this way. Nashville is a good team, but playing like that is unacceptable for us."
The Hornettes' suffocating defense held Pinckneyville scoreless in the second quarter after leading 10-7 after the first.
Things didn't get any better in the second half, with PCHS's only points of the third quarter coming on a Heather McDaniel free throw and a basket by Katrina Henson.
Taylor Cicardi's turnaround jumper accounted for the only two Pinckneyville points in the fourth, as Nashville improved to 7-0 in conference play and 19-4 overall.
Maddy Keith had 5 points to lead PCHS, Henson, Cicardi and Dani Jenkel each had 2 and McDaniel 1.
Melanie Rhine led Nashville with 13 points, Shawn Rennegarbe, Erica Brown, and Jenna Morris each had 7, Shaye Harre and Breanne Moeller 6.
"Maddy Keith did a nice job guarding Moeller," Engelhardt pointed out.
Pinckneyville had won fourteen of their previous fifteen games coming into last night's contest, and finished first in this past weekend's West Frankfort Mid-Winter Classic.
The Lady Panthers (17-6, 4-3) play at Du Quoin in another S.I.R.R. conference game this Thursday night.
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