Landrum was on fire on Monday night in the opening round of the 1A playoffs.
The Cardinals’ offense was clicking and commanded one of its best performances of the season en route to a 74-50 victory over Ninety Six.
“Our offense took off because we buckled down and played harder defense” head coach Deon Brice said. “We created a lot of easy baskets.”
Becca Burress was one of the sparks for Landrum on Monday night. Burress is that blue collar player for the Lady Cardinals. She’s constantly around the ball whether it’s fighting for rebounds or playing tough defense. On Monday, she did those two things and scored her share of baskets.
“We all worked together as a team,” she said. “The faster we made it down the floor, it started clicking.”
Burress finished the night with 13 points, eight steals and eight rebounds.
Ninety Six didn’t make it easy. The Lady Wildcats play a physical brand of basketball and that made the going tough for Landrum in the beginning. Cierra Middleton and Amber Anderson were getting in the paint; grabbing rebounds and putting the ball back up in the first quarter. They scored four points each in the quarter and were only down 17-16 going into the second quarter. The Lady Wildcats hung with Landrum for much of the second quarter until the final two minutes.
Landrum, led by Macy Atkins and Skylar Henderson, went on a 9-3 run to close out the half with a 39-31 lead. Atkins finished the game with 19 points and six steals and Henderson scored 12 points.
The Landrum offense really opened up in the second half led by guard Lauren Pitts. Landrum’s first two baskets in the half were 3-pointers by Pitts. She finished with seven 3-pointers, five in the second half, and 21 points leading all scorers.”
“(When Pitts shoots like that) it just takes the pressure off of everyone else,” Brice said. Taylor Jenkins finished with four steals and ten rebounds for Landrum. Sydnie Brown had five steals and five rebounds.
Daquasha Williams led the way with eight points for the Lady Wildcats. Toya Mathis finished with six points.
Landrum will host the winner of McBee and Williston-Elko Thursday at 7 p.m.