AHOSKIE – Caution, ladies at work.

Ridgecroft School’s girls’ basketball team scored the first dozen points of the game and never looked back here Tuesday night en route to a 37-14 non-conference win over Bethel Assembly Christian Academy.

Hennie Larabee, returning to the line-up led the Lady Ram scoring with 13 points while teammate Emily Grace added 10 more. Brittany Evans led Bethel with six points.

“We played well tonight,” said Rams coach Susan Oliver. It was not one of our strongest offensive games but we certainly made up for it on defense.”

Larabee opened the scoring by draining a three-point field goal for the first Rams’ points of the game. Tanja Sauermann followed with a put-back in the low post before Larabee dropped in five more, with a jump shot from Amber Bracy thrown in for a 12-0 score. Evans scored next in the paint for Bethel to break the string. The Rams led 15-4 after the first quarter of play.

Larabee again paced Ridgecroft opening the second quarter, with help on the wing from Bracy.  The Rams upped their lead to 21-6 before Bethel went on a run to cut it to a nine-point game at 21-12. But that was as close as the Lady Eagles would come all night. Grace drained a three-pointer just before the buzzer and the Rams took a 25-12 lead into the locker-room at halftime.

Preserving her starters for Ridgecroft’s big Tarheel Independent Conference game showdown with Pungo later that week, Oliver rested the top players and let the reserves get some quality court time in the second half.  It showed in the scoring as the offense almost came to a grinding halt.  After a Heather Joyner basket by Bethel – the Eagles’ final points of the night – made the score 25-14, one minute into the third quarter, Ridgecroft only added 12 more points the rest of the night. However, they played sterling defense in keeping Bethel off the scoreboard. The Rams doubled the score at 28-14 at the end of the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, while Bethel was held without a point, Grace got loose for the Rams. A field goal made it 30-14 to start the fourth, and then she drained a three-point bomb to make it 33-14 half a minute later.  The game then went three minutes without scoring before Sauermann got another tip. Meanwhile, Bracy closed out the scoring with a lay-up at the 3:20 mark and the scoring for both teams was done for the night.

The Ridgecroft Lady Rams junior varsity girls team beat Bethel 36-4 to move to 12-0. Ruthie Daniels had 10 points, Mackenzie Brown had 7 points, and six points each for Reagan King and Cameron Basnight.

Ridgecroft played at Pungo on Thursday.  Their next game will be Tuesday on the road at Lawrence.

Bethel  (14)

Brittany Evans-6; Alyssa Fairless-4; Heather Joyner-2; Caitlyn Mizelle-2.

Ridgecroft  (37)

Hennie Larabee-13; Emily Grace-10; Amber Bracy-7; Tanja Sauermann-6; Mary-Joe Harrell-1.