Pisgah girls' basketball has big Christmas break despite first loss

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Jan. 7—Pisgah girls' basketball had a very successful Christmas break, racking up a record of 3-1 and earning some impressive results.

Before they headed over to Asheville for a three-game Christmas tourney, the Bears opened Christmas break in Cullowhee for the Catamount Clash at Western Carolina. Pisgah matched up with North Buncombe.

In the previous bout this season on North Buncombe's court, the Bears needed a big fourth-quarter comeback to pull out the victory. When they took the trip out to Western, however, it was a different story, as Pisgah grabbed a more comfortable 66-57 win.

"I think it was a big, big boost for us going into that Christmas tournament to be able to come away with that one," said Pisgah girls' coach Brandon Holloway.

The Pisgah girls were undefeated coming into the Christmas tournament at Asheville, but walked out with a lone loss. Despite this, the Bears have yet to lose to an American team this year.

That's because that lone loss came against a team of players touring from Australia.

In the first two games the Australian team played, they scored 92 and 88 points, so Pisgah knew it was going to be a tough fight.

"Our girls did not step down, did not back away from the challenge," Holloway said.

Pisgah went into the half leading 37-25, but couldn't hold on down the stretch against a dominant offense. The team from Down Under won the game 62-58.

"Our girls played so good in that game," Holloway said. And I was probably as proud as I've been. It's the one loss we have this year, but that's probably the most complete game we played all year until the fourth quarter. They made more shots than we did down the stretch."

Despite the loss, Pisgah's defense played phenomenally against a team that showed no problems shooting the ball throughout the tourney.

"There's nothing they really haven't seen," Holloway said. "We can go in and say, 'Hey, we need to change the way we're defending the pick and rolls,' or whatever it may be, and these girls can do that. They can do that on the fly, which makes a special group of players."

In the first game of the tourney, the Bears had trounced R-S Central, 50-19, but they had another fight on their hands in the finale.

The Bears faced off against Traveler's Rest (S.C.), who had beaten West Henderson by 18 points a couple of nights before.

"We knew we had our hands full with them, and it started off close," Holloway said.

Eventually, Pisgah pulled away for a commanding 58-44 win.

"I would say there are two words to describe this team — persistent and resilient. They're going to constantly just go, go, go, go, go. There's no let-up on them. There's no letdown. Chipping away at something, eventually it's going to make it fall," Holloway said.

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