Cougars Fall in Opener

The Piedmont Academy basketball teams were swept in their season openers Monday night against Heritage.

In the first game, the Piedmont girls fell 59-31 while the boys dropped a last second 55-53 decision.

The Lady Cougars were led by Carrie Tucker who finished as both the leading scorer and rebounder for Piedmont. Tucker finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds Monday night and also went 5-for-5 at the free throw line.

Senior Bailey Myers added 10 points and four rebounds in Monday’s season opener.

“We gave up way too many points,” said Lady Cougar coach Kenny Roberts. “We will have to play better defensively. For us to score 31 points is actually pretty good considering how young we are.”

Roberts said Heritage is a good shooting team as the leading scorer for his team’s opponent finished with 24 points.
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‘They jumped out to an early lead,” the coach said. “I think we’ll be fine though. We continued to play with a lot of intensity in the second half. We were only outscored by four points in the second half after being outscored by 24 in the first half. Heritage was still playing their starters in the second half so we made some improvements and continued fighting for everything.”

It was a disappointing night for the Piedmont boys who led by as many as nine points in their opener.

“We did some little things that cost us,” said coach Chip Champion. “When you lose by two points there are several places in a game that you can point to.”

Piedmont gave up 20 second-chance points and committed 25 turnovers Monday night. The Cougars were also 17-of-30 from the free throw line which also hurt their chances, Champion said.
Taylor Jackson was the leading scorer for Piedmont with 14 points followed by Micah Tyler with 11.

“Last year we lost by 20 in the season opener to the same team so we have made some progress,” Champion said Tuesday morning. “I thought we played well at times, but we were tired at the end. We will get to work on that today in practice.”

Heritage outscored the Cougars 19-13 in the fourth quarter.

“We did some things that were typical of a first game,” Champion said. “We missed some layups and had some mental errors. We will work on those areas before we play again.”

The Piedmont Academy teams will return to action next Tuesday at Nathanael Greene beginning at 6 p.m. Piedmont will then travel to John Milledge the following Friday (Dec. 2) before hosting Flint River the following day.