Senior Belle Miller leads the Mounties in both scoring and rebounding and will look to help her team play for a sectional championship.
NEW MARKET — It’s been a crazy year for Southmont girls basketball. The Mounties didn’t play a game for over a month when the team got quarantined at the end of November. When they did return to the court Southmont was playing three games a week and it resulted in a 2-5 record in their first seven games back. However the Mounties found their rhythm near the end of the season going 3-1 in their final four games to end the season with a 9-11 record.
Southmont will now get ready to host the Class 2A Sectional 44. They drew the bye into the semi-finals and will play Parke Heritage this afternoon at 2 p.m.
Mountie coach Dan Burkman liked how the draw panned out for his team in more ways than one.
“I think it was good because we’ll get to rest up a little bit,” Burkman said. “We’ll use the week to fine tune our offense then it simply comes down to showing up and I believe if we do that both mentally and physically I like our chances.”
Southmont has faced the Wolves (18-6) this season on the road back on Nov. 30 with the Mounties falling by a final score of 52-37.
"We’re just going to focus on us because we have some things we still need to work out," Burkman said. "I don’t want to have another game like we did against Lebanon (a 55-31 loss).”
Seniors Belle Miller and Dori Frederick have been the go-to scorers for the Lady Mounties all season. Miller averages 13 points and nine rebounds while Frederick scores nine points per game. Sophomore DeLorean Mason averages around six a contest and is also the teams second leading rebounder at four a game.
Southmont will have to focus on taking care of the basketball as that has plagued the Mounties for most of the season. They average 25 turnovers a game and had 30 in their loss against Lebanon and over 40 earlier this season in a win over North Putnam.
Getting to host the sectional has plenty of advantages including getting to play in front of their home crowd. Burkman knows that his team needs to take advantage of the opportunity of playing at home in the post-season.
“It’s huge getting to host it here,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about long bus rides, it’s obviously a familiar territory for us, and we should have a great crowd, there’s just so many benefits on getting to host it here.”
Southmont will be looking for their first sectional win for the first time since 2014. That’s also the last time the Mounties cut down the nets and were sectional champions.
If the Mounties are victorious they will play the winner of North Putnam and Riverton Parke Tuesday night at 7:30 for the sectional championship.