Kasidy Russell carries McLean girls past White Deer to keep sole possession of 2-1A lead

WHITE DEER – Numbers just about told the whole story of Tuesday night’s matchup between the McLean Lady Tigers and the White Deer Does to determine who would still be sitting on top of District 2-1A.

In the end, most of those numbers favored No. 6 McLean.

It helped that a lot of them came from senior Kasidy Russell. Carrying the Lady Tigers offensively, Russell scored a game-high 28 points to lead McLean to a 44-31 victory which kept the Lady Tigers unbeaten atop 2-1A.

McLean (17-3, 5-0 in district) started strong and finished strong to combat White Deer’s burst early in the fourth quarter and gradually gained separation as the game progressed.

“The past week or so we were working on the defensive side and we really proved that today,” McLean coach Jordan Parsons said. “We shut them out in the first quarter and held them to four points in the fourth. I’m surely happy right now. I just told the girls defense wins championships and I believe that.”

So good was McLean’s defense that Russell almost outscored the Does (12-12, 3-2) by herself. Offensively, the Lady Tigers scored with Spinal Tap-ish consistency, tallying exactly 11 points in each quarter.

Russell, though, stood apart from the crowd, getting stronger as the game moved into the second half. She scored seven points in the second quarter and eight each in the third and fourth quarters to give the Lady Tigers all the offense they needed.

“My teammates were fighting just as hard as I was,” Russell said. “We made some adjustments and talked about keeping our heads in the game and not getting flustered even though (the Does) were making shots. We were making a lot of turnovers to we just changed things up and took care of the  ball and that turned things around.”

McLean was doing a lot more right than wrong, as the Lady Tigers scored the first 13 points of the game before White Deer finally scored a little over 10 minutes into the game. The Does did chip away, though, and cut it to 22-18 at halftime.

White Deer carried that momentum into the third quarter, as Zailee Nava, who didn’t start the game, started the second half and hit a pair of 3-pointers. Twice, the Does tied the game, the second time at 26 on a bucket by Ally Means.

As it turned out, McLean would retake the lead for good on Dixee Johnson’s 3-pointer to make it 29-26. After that, it was all Russell, who scored 12 of her team’s final 15 points and played the biggest part in a 14-1 run that put the game away for good.

“I’ve learned what’s my shot and what’s not my shot,” Russell said. “Sometimes I take bad shots and I’m not perfect, but I try to pick out the ones that are the highest percentage for me and that helps us a lot.”

Parsons summed up Russell’s importance to the Lady Tigers in staying alone atop the district.

“She’s a great player and she can light it up on her own, but she got her teammates involved too,” Parsons said. “She got a couple of steals and ran the floor for us. If it’s necessary, she can do it.”

Nava led White Deer with 11 points.

Take away the poor start and rough finish, and the Does outscored McLean 27-22 in the middle two quarters. That made the game closer than the final score indicated.

“Not scoring the first quarter then having the gall to come back was great,” White Deer coach Rex Beck said. “We tied it in the third then ran out of gas. Our press kind of picked us up in the second quarter and we got back in it. Of course, facing Russell it was a battle.”