I love this team … Whatever I ask them to do, they give me 110% every single time.”

Alba-Golden girls head basketball coach Dale Clement

The Alba-Golden Lady Panthers’ season hasn’t been perfect. In fact, they lost their first six district matchups, the most recent in a 54-24 defeat at Como-Pickton last Tuesday. [view photos]

Alba-Golden’s head coach Dale Clement doesn’t expect perfection, “just a relentless pursuit of it.”

He says that is what his charges have been doing and are getting better every single game, which is what got them over the top of the North Hopkins Lady Panthers, 45-38 at home Friday.

Clement says, “I love this team… Whatever I ask them to do, they give me 110% every single time.”

It can be easy for teams to give up – on a play, a game, a season – but the Lady Panthers have certainly not. One could see it in the closing seconds of the runaway loss to Como-Pickton, when Kamrin Wright pressured the ball-handler until the final buzzer.

It was evident again Friday in a physical battle with the visiting Lady Panthers, every time Wright would get up after a foul or hard-fought tie-up. She is far from alone.

Alexis Wilmut, Kalli Trimble and Kylie Kennedy had to scrap and stretch for 18 rebounds between them.

The blows led to both teams entering the bonus early in the second quarter.

Defensive pressure by North Hopkins and some loose Alba-Golden passes contributed to an early hole, trailing 18-8.

The press started to work for the hosts near the end of the second and they clawed back to within five, but a three in the waning moments of the half pushed the margin to eight.

Bailee Bishop earned free throws and sunk both to make it 23-17 in favor of the visitors at intermission.

Halftime focused on adjustments to nab more steals and capitalize on free-throw opportunities.

After yielding two threes, Alba-Golden seized several steals and with them momentum.

Erin Langston proved pesky to North Hopkins’ ball-handlers and pulled down four rebounds.

Fresh off the bench, Jessie Mitchell found her way to the line on back-to-back plays and nailed four straight free shots to close the gap to one, 29-28.

With just over ten seconds left in the third, Cacie Lennon grabbed a steal and the lead, flying to the bucket for a left-handed lay-in and one, hitting her foul shot to take a 31-29 edge into the fourth.

Going 12-of-13 at the line, Lennon “came up big tonight,” noted Clement, and says she’s accepting the leadership role thrust upon her.

Kennedy and Lennon led the Lady Panthers with 14 points apiece.

Getting into the double-bonus early in the fourth, Alba-Golden wracked up 26 points from the line. Whether it was to rein in the lead or to expand their own, the home crowd relished each one that found the bottom of the bucket, helping the stationary scoring feed into each consecutive play.

“We didn’t lose our composure,” said Clement. Calling a timeout to calm his players down, he let them know “We’re in the driver’s seat now.”

They rode it to a seven-point margin. North Hopkins began heaving three-pointers to try and catch up, but none fell. They pulled within four, but no closer. Alba-Golden was able to stall for over a minute and fittingly score their final points at the free throw line.

The Lady Panthers traveled Tuesday to Cumby. Friday's varsity basketball game against Cooper is rescheduled for Monday at 6 p.m.