[Stardust]

BOWLING GREEN — Manual showed why it's the No. 1 team in Dave Cantrall's Rating the State Thursday by dismantling Montgomery County 71-33 in the quarterfinals of the Houchens Industries/KHSAA Girls' State Basketball Tournament.

Twelve players scored for the Lady Crimsons (35-2), who will face Paul Laurence Dunbar in Saturday's 11 a.m. EST semifinals in E.A. Diddle Arena.

Kara Wright led the point parade with 13, one more than LeAsia Wright. April Wilson, named earlier in the day as one of five finalists for Miss Basketball, totaled 10 points, five assists, three steals and two rebounds in 19 minutes.

She triggered the offensive breakthrough that Coach Stacy Pendleton was looking for.

"She played like Miss Basketball the first few minutes and got her teammates and herself going," he said.

Manual shot 27-for-57 (47.4 percent) and held Montgomery to 13-for-44 (29.5 percent). The Crimsons finished with a 36-12 advantage with points in the paint, 34-8 off turnovers, 20-0 with second-chance points and 26-5 off the bench.

Manual thus reached the Final Four for the third time in five years.

"They're very, very quick," Pendleton said of Dunbar. "They play a whole lot like we do, so it'll probably be fun. I know they like to run. Hopefully we can keep up with them."

Montgomery (29-7) got eight points from Erica Rogers. Keria Lockett and Macie Spence scored seven each.

Spence, the Lady Indians' representative on the All-Tournament team, also had five rebounds and three assists. The Indians scored the first five points of the game.

"With a team like Manual, we kind of had to pick an area we thought we could get a little bit lucky in, so we started the game trying to back up a little bit and see if they'd miss some outside shots," Coach Janie Robinson said. "Early on, it did work — for about three minutes. Definitely the highlight of the day. Once they got the lead, we knew that that was going to be pretty tough because it's a team we can't press or trap."

Trailing 35-21 at halftime, Montgomery was held to seven points in the third quarter, all by Lockett.

Robinson said she then had a different type of problem in the fourth quarter: "Once they knew we probably were not going to win, everybody got so emotional on the bench that it was hard to get people to finish the game because they are very close."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/03/09/21029...rylink=cpy