Belgreen girls, boys top rival Tharptown in area basketball doubleheader

When the Belgreen High School and Tharptown High School varsity girls’ and boys’ basketball teams faced off in an area showdown Tuesday night, it was the hosting Bulldogs that came away victorious—the Lady Bulldogs picking up a 48-22 win over the Tharptown girls, while the Belgreen boys beat the Wildcats 40-18.

In the girls’ game, Belgreen progressively put more and more distance between itself and Tharptown before closing it out with a 26-point advantage

After the opening eight minutes, BHS led THS 10-7 and then outscored the visitors 17-6 in the second period to take a 27-13 lead into halftime.

In the second half, it was more of the same as BHS outpaced Tharptown 9-2 in the third quarter and 12-7 in the fourth.

Belgreen’s Makenna Fisher was the contest’s top scorer, finishing with 11 points. Jemma Moore added eight points for the Lady Bulldogs, as well. And for Tharptown, Carly Cason led her team in scoring with six points while senior Alyssa Fischer scored five points.

The result improved the Lady Bulldogs’ record to 8-5 overall and 2-0 in Class 2A Area 14. The Lady Wildcats dropped to 2-8 and 0-2 in the area.

Next up was the boys’ game between these two rivals.

The visiting Wildcats held a one-point, 9-8 advantage over the Bulldogs after the first period of play, but BHS rebounded in the eight minutes before the half, blanking Tharptown 11-0 to take a 19-9 lead into the locker room.

Led by Chris Bentley in the second half—Bentley scored all of his game-high 10 points in the final 16 minutes—the Bulldogs went on to more than double their halftime advantage by the end of the game: BHS led 27-11 at the end of the third and outscored THS 13-7 in the fourth to come away the 22-point victors.

Next to Bentley’s 10 points, Belgreen’s Jake Dill added seven points for his team. The top scorer for Tharptown was Joshua Bahena who ended the night with seven points.

The Bulldogs improved to 5-7 and 1-1 in the area after the win. With the loss, Tharptown fell to 5-7 and 0-2 in area play.