Lady Trojans use barrage of three-pointers to dismantle Charles City

A mad scramble for a loose ball in the first quarter sees New Kent’s Alaina Torres (right) beat out Charles City’s Alexis Williams (second from right), while respective teammates Haley Hyndshaw (second from left) and Cheyenne Marshall (standing) look for a way to get into the play.

Andre' Jones photo

A Saturday night contest between New Kent’s Lady Trojans and Charles City Lady Panthers saw a modest crowd fill the gymnasium. What those in attendance didn’t expect was to see how the visiting Lady Trojans dominated from behind the arc.

New Kent drained 10 three-pointers, scoring more points with the long-distance connections than Charles City totaled in the contest as the Lady Trojans coasted to a 65-27 win.

Haley Hyndshaw’s corner three began the onslaught of trifectas for New Kent as the visitors quickly jumped ahead 6-0 over Charles City. After Alexis Williams’ converted a floater to get the Lady Panthers on the board, Abbey Coutu’s jumper along with Hyndshaw’s conventional three-point play stretched the lead to nine (11-2) for New Kent.

The hosts slowly creeped back into the game. Cheyenne Marshall converted two free throws and followed that up with an assist to Williams. Williams dropped in two additional shots from the charity stripe to cut New Kent’s lead down to a one possession game (11-8).

But the Trojans began to make Charles City pay for their aggressiveness on the defensive end. Six straight points ended the quarter with the visitors up 17-8. At the beginning of quarter two, a bank shot by Hyndshaw and a three-pointer by Natasha Lange gave New Kent it’s first double-digit lead (22-8).

New Kent’s movement of the ball provided Madison Foley back-to-back three-pointers, leading the visitors to outscore Charles City 19-3 in the second quarter and take a 36-11 lead into the halftime intermission.

The Lady Panthers searched for any means to make a run to get back into the contest. Trine Wittkopf’s stickback followed by Williams’ jumper trimmed the lead by a small margin (36-15) at the start of the third quarter. But the Trojans reaped the benefits of three-pointers from Bailee Hellebrandt and Lange that stretched lead to 29 by the end of the third quarter. From there, New Kent continued to utilize its 1-3-1 defense to confuse Charles City, forcing the hosts into 25 turnovers over the course of the night. The Lady Trojans finished off the contest with relative ease to win round one of the neighboring counties’ rivalry.

After the contest, victorious New Kent Head Coach Neko Burson commented about his team’s strength this year and how it flourished in the contest.

“This is the best three-point shooting team that I’ve had and that is a strength of ours,” he said. “Usually we have players that get hot on different nights, but I don’t want to put the load on only one girl.

“Tonight, we moved the ball until we got a comfortable shot,” Burson continued. “We were able to take advantage of Charles City’s aggressiveness and it will take the discipline like we had tonight going forward to win games in our district.”

For Charles City, Head Coach Vashaun Otey expressed concern about his team’s attentiveness on the court in the contest.

“We didn’t play discipline ball tonight,” he said. “We got to listen more in order to be better defensively.

“We’re not paying attention and not listening,” Otey continued. “We play only in stretches in the game but then there are times where we look like we don’t know what we are doing.

“Right now, our focus is going to be doing stuff together as a team,” he added, focusing on chemistry. “I am going to start to hold them accountable and we’re going to change things around here to be successful.”

New Kent (3-2) received a game high 19 points from Hynshaw, while teammates Foley (14) and Hellebrandt (11) also finished in double figures. Lange pumped in eight, Coutu tossed in six, Alexis Torres pitched in four, and Alayna Loveland contributed three.

Charles City (0-5) received a team-high 16 points from Williams. Skye Bradby scored five, while Wittkopf, Marshall, and Marisa Greenhow all chipped in with two apiece.