BRENTWOOD – The Ravenwood High School girls basketball team won a "one-run game" on Friday night.
Hosting former district rival Franklin, the Lady Raptors generated only one significant scoring flurry, but that one surge enabled the Ravenwood girls to build all the cushion they needed for a 53-44 victory.
With the game tied 16-16 early in the second quarter, Ravenwood reeled off a 14-3 run — fueled by three buckets from senior star Reghan Grimes and some aggressive work on both ends from Elizabeth Flynn — to take a 31-19 lead with less than a minute remaining before halftime.
From there, it was simply a matter of protecting their lead in the second half, and the home team was able to do that, despite some cold shooting from the floor and the foul line.
Grimes, who finished with a game-high 18 points, said the Lady Raptors were pleased with the win, but need to develop more consistency on offense as the season progresses. They made just five field goals in the second half.
"We seem to have some lulls during the third quarter of games this year," said Grimes. "We go through stretches where we don't make the best decisions, but I think that just comes with having so many young players on the team. There are times when I am the only one on the floor who has any real varsity experience."
The Lady Raptors, who have a new-look roster this year after the graduation of seven seniors from last year's team, improved to 5-3 on the season. They earned the victory despite going 15-of-25 at the foul line.
For Franklin (6-4), Charlotte Robertson scored a team-high 16 points and Jean Costello added 14 points, including four 3-pointers.
Costello hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the span of about 90 seconds early in the fourth quarter to help Franklin trim Ravenwood's lead to 44-37 with 5:50 to play. The Lady Admirals pulled within six points on two occasions — 46-40 and 48-42 — in the final two minutes, but Ravenwood converted 5-of-6 free throws over the final 1:40 on for the win.
Flynn, the ball-hawking junior, finished with 11 points for Ravenwood and sophomore Emma Rayl added eight, including a pair of 3-pointers.
"We have really good chemistry, especially for it to be this early in the season," said Rayl. "We have a lot of young players — compared to last year — but a lot of us grew up together, and that really helps."
In a sense, the Lady Raptors are growing up together again. With many of the young players seeing significant minutes, even at crunch time, the underclassmen are getting some "on-the-job" training.
On the other hand, Ravenwood does a have a veteran star, Grimes, that they can rely on in pivotal moments. In Friday's game, Grimes scored eight points in the fourth quarter, including going 6-of-6 at the foul line, to help the Lady Raptors get to the finish line.
"Reghan is going to make plays for us when we need her to," said Ravenwood coach Andrew James. "She's a sure thing."
