The Northwest Rankin Cougars waltzed into their matchup on Friday with four straight wins but they left with five. They had just enough and edged Ridgeland out 64-61. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Ridgeland lost despite a true team effort on the offense, the best among them being Laci Buchanan, who scored 20 points along with six steals. Buchanan continues to roll, besting her previous point total in each of the last three games she's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Eva Young, who scored 16 points along with five steals.
Northwest Rankin pushed their record up to 21-10 with that victory, which was their tenth straight at home. They've been dominating during the games in that stretch too, as they've won by an average of 25.9 points. As for Ridgeland, their loss dropped their record down to 14-11.
Northwest Rankin's homestand continues as they prepare to take on the Pirates at 6:00 p.m. on February 8th. Pearl will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Mississippi Rankings (they are ranked 140th, while the Cougars are ranked 29th). Ridgeland does not have any more games scheduled as of now.
