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:Cheerlead
STANFORD — Randy Salyers knows his Casey County girls are lucky to still be alive in the postseason.
The Rebels built a double-digit lead over Burgin twice Tuesday, only to see the Bulldogs rally back to cut it to two three times late before Casey ultimately hung on for a 50-43 win in the girls 12th Region Tournament at Lincoln County.
Tiara Cochran scored 16 of her 23 points in the second half, including five straight late in the game that helped the Rebels pull away and advance to a semifinal matchup with Wayne County, a 55-51 winner over Danville. Jasmine Johnson added 12 points, hitting four straight free throws in the final eight seconds to secure the win for the Rebels (18-14).
But Salyers said another game like Tuesday’s and the Rebels can consider their season over.
“(I’m) not very pleased with anything we did. I can handle certain things, I just can’t handle not being mentally ready to play basketball in the regional tournament,” Salyers said. “And we were not mentally ready to play. And that showed up in not reacting on the defensive end. And when you don’t react on the defensive end, that where we picked up so many fouls. We played lazy and put them on the free throw line way too much.”
Casey was helped by the fact that Burgin (13-19) was just 17 for 31 from the free-throw line.
“That will kill you,” Burgin coach Chris Myers said of his team's free-throw futility.
Missing free throws proved costly at the end of the game when Burgin had chances to tie the game up. Casey led by 11 in the third quarter before Burgin rallied to make it a 31-26 game in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs cut the lead to two three times, the last at 39-37 on a free throw from Shavon Majors with 2:12 to play.
But Cochran answered with two free throws 10 seconds later, part of five straight points she scored at the line to make it 44-37 Casey with 56.8 seconds to play. Burgin was 5 for 10 from the line in the 2:41 of the game, while Casey was 10 for 12 during the same stretch and went 18 for 24 overall at the line.
A 3-pointer from Burgin’s Liz Marcinek made it 46-43 with 12 seconds left, but Johnson made her final four shots at the line to seal the win.
Majors finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds to lead Burgin. Marcinek had 15 points and five boards as Burgin held a 28-18 edge on the glass.
“Shavon came up huge tonight,” Myers said.
Casey’s defense was the key early. The Rebels scored their first nine points off Burgin turnovers. The Bulldogs had eight turnovers before Summer Burke got their first field-goal attempt when she was fouled making a layup off a Casey turnover with 44 seconds left. She hit the free throw to make it 9-3 after a quarter.
Johnson converted a three-point play, Cochran hit layup and Johnson drilled a 3-pointer from the right wing to put Casey ahead 17-5 before the Bulldogs came back with some pressure of their own. Majors’ free throw keyed an 11-2 run to close out the second quarter and trim Casey’s lead to 19-6 at the half. Majors scored nine points during the run and converted a three-point play with 5 seconds left in the half.
“We came out in that second quarter, and one we asked Shavon if she would just take over. She stepped up huge in that second quarter,” Myers said. “The other thing is we started to press a little bit and forced tempo. We weren’t just letting them run their halfcourt offense over and over, and I guess it energized us.”
Burgin created just two turnovers during that run, but forced Casey into a 4-of-16 shooting quarter. For the game, Casey was 14 for 41 and hit four of 17 3-pointers.
Casey built another double digit lead in the third quarter, going up 29-18 on a layup from Lakken Miller with 3:37 left in the period. But Majors help start another run, hitting a jumper to make it 29-20. She and Marcinek then scored off turnovers to make it a five-point game. Cochran scored with 10 seconds left to make it 31-24, but Marcinek took the inbounds pass, raced down the court and went in for the layup at the buzzer to cut the lead to 31-26 heading to the final period.
Burgin was 5 for 11 in the quarter and finished the game 12 for 29 from the floor, going 2 for 10 from 3-point range. Salyers’ said Marcinek’s last drive was emblematic of the Rebels’ defensive problems Tuesday.
“We’re going to have to play a lot better defense. We trailed people all night long, we didn’t help on the screens,” he said. “Somebody cut down the lane, we didn’t cut them off. And the times we did help, we didn’t help where we wanted to go for the dribble. Instead, we waited for them to pick the ball up and we fouled them.”

12th Region Tournament
At Lincoln County
First Round
Burgin 3 16 26 43
Casey County 9 19 31 50
BURGIN (13-19) — Summer Burke 3, Randi Burke 1, Lindsey Monson 3, Shavon Majors 23, Liz Marcinek 12, Taylor Sanders 1.
CASEY (18-14) — Jasmine Johnson 12, Lakken Miller 6, Christin Terry 4, Katie Douglas 4, Tiara Cochran 23, Mariah Richardson 1.