Basketball Recap: Avery County Falls Short of Mountain Heritage in the Playoffs

It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact Avery County can now relate to. They took a hard 58-44 fall against the Mountain Heritage Cougars on Tuesday. Unfortunately, that's the fourth time they've come up short against the Cougars this season, with their most recent defeat being a 64-59 loss last Saturday.

Despite the defeat, Avery County saw an underclassman step up: sophomore Caroline Hollifield posted 14 points and seven rebounds. Emma Clark was another key player, putting up nine points.

Mountain Heritage got their win on the backs of several key players, but it was Lilly Neill out in front who dropped a double-double with 12 points and 14 boards. With that strong performance, Neill is now averaging an impressive 8.1 rebounds per game. The team also got some help courtesy of Cloey Morrow, who earned 15 points in addition to eight boards and five assists.

Avery County's loss ended a six-game streak of away wins and brought them to 21-8. A key ingredient in that success has been their performance when it comes to assists: they averaged an imposing 7.83 assists in those games compared to only 5.43 in the others. As for Mountain Heritage, the victory (which was their 14th in a row) raised their record to 26-3.

Avery County does not have any more games scheduled as of now. As for Mountain Heritage, they will head out on the road to face off against Bishop McGuinness at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. Bishop McGuinness is on a 13-game streak of home wins, Mountain Heritage an eight-game streak of away wins -- so someone will have to leave a streak behind on the court.