Abbeville girls fight for first win of season

It’s been a problem for most of the season, but in the region bout, all they had was all they needed.

Despite two Panthers fouling out late, the Abbeville girls basketball team held on to claim its first victory of the season in a 44-37 win over the Bulldogs.

“I’m proud of them,” Crawford said. “It feels great to finally get that win. We’ve been fighting hard, the girls have been playing hard. We’re few in numbers, but they’ve been fighting.”

For much of the game, both teams spent time trading turnovers. Ultimately, it became a matter of who took advantage of those turnovers and who could limit the damage defensively.

However, much of that stopped in the third quarter, particularly from Abbeville.

The Panthers went on a 12-2 run that spanned for much of the third. Dychel Bolden was a key piece in that run, scoring eight points in that span, making up a huge fraction of her team-leading 12 points.

“Just the fact they started trusting one another with the ball and they started working hard on defense. That was a big factor,” Crawford said.

However, not too long after, Bolden fouled out, and soon, Lauryn Foster did, too. The duo combined to contribute 20 points for the Panthers, boosting Abbeville’s chances at a win.

In the fourth, a quarter that has been a thorn in the side of the Panthers this season, the final five held tight.

Although Abbeville scored just two field goals in the quarter, the Panthers’ four late free throws helped them hold on. However, the charity stripe wasn’t kind to Abbeville throughout the game with a 10-for-34 mark at the line.

“It was great to see those younger players hold on and fight for the win,” Crawford said. “We finished down the line with a couple of free throws and it was really good to see that.”

Tuesday night’s game showed a lot of promise early on for Abbeville after jumping out to a 7-0 lead. And with their first win finally out of the way, the Panthers will look to keep that promise alive starting Friday night at home against Saluda.

“We could definitely cut down on our turnovers and we could focus way more on making free throws,” Crawford said. “We missed entirely too many free throws tonight, but we came out with a win and that’s the most important thing.”