PAXTON — The Paxton girls haven’t lost to their counterpart 10 miles down the road, Laurel Hill, since Bethany Neale was in kindergarten.
That streak was never in particular danger on Friday night, as the Hoboes traveled to meet the Bobcats for the second time this season. But sophomore shooting guard Katie Sebastian erased any and all doubt that the streak would end this season.
Sebastian poured in 15 points in the third quarter alone, shooting 4-of-5 and hitting all four free throws, to lock up an eventual 67-39 Bobcat victory over their neighboring rivals.
“She’s been struggling,” Paxton coach Steve Williams said of Sebastian. “She’s just a sophomore, she’s so little, plays so many minutes. I told her she has to use her legs. She came off the double-screen once and she was looking to pass but she got it, knocked it down, and went from there.”
There are a few surprising elements of Sebastian’s output. The first is that on Friday, Paxton completed a 10-day stretch in which it played six games (It won all of them). The second is that Sebastian, the team’s second-leading scorer behind Neale, was coming off a 2-of-11 night from three in a 46-40 win over Poplar Springs.
She couldn’t pinpoint anything specific as to where her rediscovered stroke came from. Ice baths helped keep her muscles fresh throughout the 10-day grind. Once one 3 went in, she said, the confidence returned, and her shot was back.
“Yeah, I wasn’t doing too good before,” Sebastian said. “Once I got set, it helped a lot. It boosts my confidence a lot.”
Neale’s output was a bit more spread than Sebastian’s, as she scored 18 points over the course of the first three quarters. By that point, the Bobcats had established a 52-28 lead and her services weren’t much needed.
She, alongside freshman Genesis Long, staked Paxton to a 16-1 first-quarter lead by combining for 13 points.
It took Laurel Hill nearly the entire half to reach that total.
“We were able to make shots and put on the pressure,” Paxton coach Steve Williams said. “We were able to get points in transition and press a little more. Any time you play Laurel Hill, and our kids know each other so well, they’re all good friends, it’s a great healthy rivalry, and they like playing against each other. It’s always good.”
On Tuesday, Paxton will play host to District 2-1A power Graceville before capping the regular season at Arnold on Jan. 22.
After the past week and a half, two games in three days doesn’t seem so bad.
“We played six games in 10 days,” Williams said. “I like the fact that we tried to compete, to play at a high speed and played like that the whole time.
“That shows their conditioning.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Paxton girls roll past Hoboes