Eastern’s Alexa Pennington drives to the hoop for a score during the Lady Warriors’ Feb. 2 win at Ripley.

By Wade Linville –

The Eastern Lady Warriors have staked claim to their second Southern Hills Athletic Conference Division I title three years under the leadership of third-year head coach Kevin Pickerill. But the Lady Warriors weren’t only looking to finish regular season play with the league title. Also among their goals for the regular season was to bring home the SHAC Gold Ball, an award only issued to basketball teams that finish perfect in SHAC play.
The Lady Warriors held a flawless SHAC record of 12-0 entering their final contest of the regular season, a Feb. 9 road game at West Union,
The Lady Warriors entered their final regular season game on an impressive 14-game winning streak.
The spectacular regular season has earned the Lady Warriors the No. 1 seed for the Southeast District Division III Sectional Tournament.
The Lady Warriors received a bye for round one and they will take on the winner of the Feb. 15 tourney bout between No. 8 seed Rock Hill (5-13) and No. 9 seed Northwest (2-15).
The Lady Warriors were on the road at Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington High School on Feb. 2 in one of their recent SHAC bouts.
In a league contest that started out close, it was the Lady Warriors pulling away to claim a 67-42 win over the home standing Lady Jays.
The Lady Warriors got off to a slow start, but heated up to outscore the Lady Jays 16-7 in the first quarter and 16-12 in the second quarter to hold a 32-19 lead at halftime.
The Lady Warriors returned from halftime break to outscore the Lady Jays 13-7 in the third quarter, upping their lead to 45-26.
The Lady Warriors capped off the 25-point victory by outscoring the Lady Jays 22-16 in a high scoring fourth period.
There were four Eastern players to reach double figures in scoring in the win at Ripley.
Leading the way for the Lady Warriors was junior post-player Mikayla Farris, who drained six shots from the field and connected on two-of-two attempts from the charity stripe to finish with 14 points.
Eastern sophomore Alexa Pennington and junior Whitney Broughton contributed in the win with 12 points apiece.
Pennington buried three shots from inside the arc, one three-pointer, and three-of-five attempts from the foul line.
Broughton sank four three-pointers for all of her points.
Eastern junior Allison Day finished with 10 points, burying five shots from inside the arc.