Middle School Lady Crusaders End Season with a Loss

          February 14, 2012 - With only two games left in the regular season, the Shannon Forest Christian School (SFCS) Middle School Girls' team came into Southside Christian hungry for a win. From the tip off, the Lady Crusaders took control, scoring the first points of the game. Delayne Nickles and Chandler Ethridge helped the Lady Crusaders jump out to an early 6-0 lead. Southside, however, did not trail for long and the half time score was Southside 9, SFCS 8. The Crusaders led 14-11 going into the 4th quarter, but started to feel the pressure of the game. "It was a back and forth battle between both teams," commented Coach Kyle Heppeard. "Southside wasn't going to give up and we weren't planning on giving it to them either," added Heppeard. Michael-Marie Stogner shot two mid-range shots for 4 points at the start of the 4th quarter. Southside, however, answered with 6 points off of SFCS turnovers, making the score 18-17 in favor of Shannon. With two minutes to go, Nickles found herself on the charity stripe and made both of her foul shots. Now leading by 3, it was all up to the Crusaders defense to finish the game. Southside's strong, inside game was too much for the Crusaders and the 4th quarter score ended in 20-20 sending the game into overtime. Shannon did not fare well in OT and Southside outscored SFCS by 6-2 ending the game in a 26-22 defeat. 
          Coming off of the loss, the Lady faced the Greenville Hurricanes for the last home game of the season. Once again the Crusaders made it very interesting as they watched an early lead slip from their grasps. Shannon Forest scored only 3 points in the first half, but managed to hold the Hurricanes to zero with their 1-2-2 trapping defense. In the 3rd quarter, the Hurricanes came out with a twist, scored 10 points and kept SFCS from scoring a single point. The Crusaders trailed 10-3 as the horn buzzed to bring them out for the fourth and final quarter. "I just had to look into all of my girls eyes and ask them, do you really want to end your season like this, if not, then you better respond," said Heppeard. Never having scored more than eight points in one quarter all year, the Lady Crusaders had a really tough road to travel just to tie the game. Shannon Forest came back to be down just 1 point with 27 seconds to go on the clock. Once again, Nickles shot two foul shots to not only tie the game, but to have her team up by 1 with just seconds remaining. With just 3 seconds to go, Stogner stole the ball and laid it in with just 4 tenths of a second left and the Crusaders won by 2!
          The Middle School Lady Crusaders ended their 2011-2012 season on Tuesday, February 7, when they were knocked out of CMSC tournament play by Mitchell Road with a score of 24-8. SFCS finished their season with a 3- 13 record. Next year the Crusaders will have a very young team. The Crusaders will be returning one 8th Grade player -Macy Burress and 4 players in 7th Grade - Chandler Ethridge, Brittany Lee, Abby McGovern, and Callie Morland. "We will be very small next year but quick, it could work to our advantage on the defensive end," concluded Heppeard.