Lady Eagles complete season sweep of rival-EMCC

Lady Eagles 77
EMCC 55

(MERIDIAN)- The Meridian Community College Lady Eagles played their third game in the past four days when they hosted rival- East Mississippi Community College Monday night at the Graham Gymnasium.

MCC came into the game fresh off a sweep of the Rush Invitational this past weekend with wins over Alabama Southern and Wallace-Selma. Normally playing back-to-back games after a Thanksgiving feast and then turning around to face your rival would have most coaches worried, but not MCC’s head coach, Hilary Allen.

“We scheduled this on purpose,” said Allen.

“This is the only way to prepare for our State/Region tournament play. Then we’ll see the same thing, ballgames on three to four consecutive days.”

MCC showed some signs of slow play early, which probably had more to do with EMCC’s game plan than it had to do with the Lady Eagles fatigue.

“Give EMCC credit, their game plan was to slow down our offense which we don’t like to do,” said Allen.

“We like to score a lot and get up and down the floor, their offense is a bit more patient.”

Midway through the first half, Jennifer Wair put a little spark into MCC’s offense as she scored 13 points in the opening period.

Behind the play of Wair, the Lady Eagles managed a comfortable 39-27 halftime lead.

EMCC would put of the first points of the second half to close the gap down to eight points, but that’s as close as the Lady Lions would get as MCC’s pre season first team All American, NaDosha Strickland would score 11 of her game high 19 points in the final half to lead MCC to an easy 77-55 victory over EMCC.

Wair ended up with 15 points and freshman Tiara Parker scored 11 points for Meridian, while Kottia White and Sanitra Bush both led EMCC (3-6) with 10 points.

With the win, the Lady Eagles improved to 6-1 and completed the season sweep over longtime rival- EMCC, a rivalry which may or may not be played again depending on the shakedown of MCC’s future independent status away from the MACJC athletic conference.

MCC now prepares to play four consecutive road games, the first coming Friday at Wallace-Selma.

“We now have to learn how to play on the road,” said Allen.

“We’ll face Selma for the second time in a week, then we’ll have long road trips to Delgado (LA), Coahoma (MS) and Volunteer State (TN). We’ll have to grow up, but this should prepare us for road games in the conference.”

MCC’s next home game will open up their final season in the MACJC as they host South Division foe- Hinds Community College on January 7.