'Tis the Holiday Season: Lady Panthers Sluggish, but Pull Away Late

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Pinckneyville Community High School's girls basketball team notched its 10th victory of the season Saturday night-opening the tough Herrin Holiday Classic round robin on a posiive note-edging past Johnston City.

The final score was 39-31. Pinckneyville plays Carterville (0-1) at 5:30 Monday night in round #2.

Emily Miller scored 15 points in the Lady Panther victory, with Mo Ramsey adding eight points.

PCHS and Johnston City were knotted at 12-12 after one quarter before and the Lady Panthers led 21-16 at halftime before J'City began to rally.

Pinckneyvile's cushion was just 28-25 as the final period began.

Miller had three three-point hoops in the contest.

"Tonight was a pretty disappointing effort on our part," Lady Panthers coach Alan Engelhardt said. " You have to give Johnston City credit, even though they were starting three freshmen, they out-hustled us and out-quicked us all game. We have to understand as a team that we have to play hard every game, not just 3 out of every 4 games. There are nights when shots don't fall, but there is no excuse for having a night where your defense and effort fail. "

Maddy Keith added six points and Taylor Cicardi threw in five for PCHS.

Cobden defeated Carterville 41-37 and host Herrin handled Vienna 50-36 in the other two games Saturday.