Chester County girls beat Lexington, earn 2 seed

HENDERSON — Tuesday, a double-digit deficit proved costly. Chester County girls basketball rallied but ultimately fell by one point to Lexington.

Three nights later, at home this time, Chester County trailed its biggest rival at halftime by 13 points.

“We told them before the game everything’s not going to go right for us tonight. I said they might get ahead and they might make a run, but you can not hang your head,” Chester County coach Lee Pipkin said. “You’ve got to be determined to get back into it.”

Determination paid off Friday in a 52-51 win for Chester County that broke a tie in the standings on the last night of the regular season and lifted the Eaglettes (18-10, 8-2) into the No. 2 seed in next week’s District 14-AA tournament.

Lexington fell to 20-5 overall and 7-3 in the district and as the No. 3 seed will play the No. 6 seed next week for the right to meet Chester County in Henderson.

Chester County junior guard Paige Pipkin, who fouled out of Tuesday’s meeting, scored 26 points Friday. That included seven points in the final three minutes from a 3-point play, two foul shots and the go-ahead bank shot with 1:10 to go.

“We were all determined from that loss Tuesday by one point,” Paige Pipkin, a UT Martin commit, said. “That gets you down, losing by one, because you know you could have made this shot, you could have done this better. And then you just get down on yourself.

“But we have been really focusing in practice Wednesday and Thursday and so we came out and we were determined. We were like, we are not going to let this little stuff bring us down. We’re going to keep doing everything. Put your head down, you’ve got to keep going, no matter what happens.”

Chester County's Jantzen Robinson got a steal on the ensuing Lexington possession. The Eaglettes missed their next shot but Robinson rebounded it and fed Amya Boyle for a 52-49 lead.

Lexington missed some shots on its final possession, and Whitney Roberts’ late layup was not enough to force overtime.

Lexington led 17-9 after one quarter and 31-18 at halftime, boosted at the end of each quarter by a deep 3 from Kaitlyn Kelley. By halftime, Kelley had four 3s, Brilee Bromley had two and Nabreyah Howard one.

But Pipkin scored five points to open the third quarter and the Eaglettes cut their deficit to seven by the end of the quarter.

Importantly, Chester County went to its press earlier in the second half than it had Tuesday and again caused Lexington trouble with it.

“I think it’s mental. Mental and mindset,” Lexington coach Bianca Thomas said. “We want kids to step up in big-time games. This is a big-time game. We want kids who want the ball. Want the ball. Don’t be scared to make a mistake.”

Kelley led Lexington with 22 points and Bromley had 15.

“If you look at both games we should be 2-0 right now against Chester County, but we are just not finishing ball games right now,” Thomas said. “We’ve just got to do a better job.”

Margie Coleman scored 11 points for Chester County. Paige Pipkin is regularly the top scorer for the Eaglettes, but she’s confident in all her teammates’ ability to help in a key moment.

“They all have a unique thing that they put in to help our team win and to help us fit together,” she said.

Boys

Lexington 69, Chester County 54

Tylan Johnson scored 18 points, Trevon Bryant 15 and Christian Linton 13 as the Tigers pulled away in the second half. They scored 43 points after halftime.

Grant Burns and Ethan Renfroe scored 18 apiece for the host Eagles.

Craig Thomas, 425-9634