Varnado trailed by six at halftime, but scored the first seven points of the second half and never trailed again as the Lady Wildcats won their first game of the season in a 37-31 victory over Mt. Hermon at home Tuesday night.

Mt. Hermon led 17-11 at halftime, but Varnado spent the first 4:24 on a 7-0 run to take its first lead since being up 11-9 five minutes into the second quarter.

Quierra Bickham began the run with layup to make it a four-point game with 6:29 on the clock. Jamonica Dillon closed the gap to two with a bucket and then Tanisha Brister got inside and tied the game at 17-17. Brister was fouled on a 3-pointer with 3:36 left. She hit 1-of-3 from the free-throw line, but the made shot gave Varnado an 18-17 lead.

Mt. Hermon’s Destiny Lewis tied the game at 18-18 with 3:15 to go by splitting from the free-throw line, but Varnado scored four straight with Brister hitting a bucket and getting fouled. She missed the free throw, but had put her team up 20-18. She then hit two free throws with 2:39 to go and Varnado had a 22-18 advantage.

From that point, the game was never tied and Varnado never trailed.
The Lady Wildcats led 26-20 after the third quarter.

“The thing is, we’re still a young team and it’s just trying to get them to move forward and have more confidence in themselves. We’re building and we’re trying to get them to keep shooting to do what they need to do and just move on and move forward,” Varnado coach Cashanda Nichols said.

Mt. Hermon trimmed the deficit to 26-25 with 7:07 left in the game, but Varnado hung tough and never relinquished the lead in the 37-31 victory.

Bickham led all point scorers with 15 points, which included a 3-pointer. She hit some big shots down the stretch in the fourth quarter.

Brister tallied 12 points for Varnado, which included a 3-pointer.

Jaden Foster and Destiny Keys put up four points each and Dillon added two in the victory.

Kalei Hughes recorded nine points for Mt. Hermon while Macey Applegate recorded eight, Sikoya Jackson had seven, Lewis posted five and Keashea Banks added two.

Mt. Hermon coach Jeff Thomas said his team just didn’t play well.

“We didn’t rebound well. I forget what we were at the free-throw line (6-for-14). We get a little better each game,” Thomas said. “We didn’t block out. We missed a ton of layups. We’ve got to correct those things and we’ll win some games. Layups, blocking out and free throws are the name of the game.”