RED SPRINGS — For going on 23 years, the calling card of Patty Evers’ teams has been defense.
Win No. 500 on Friday night was no different. The Lady Eagles held host Red Springs to a pair of first-half field goals eight minutes apart and hustled away with a 54-20 triumph in front of a near-capacity crowd.
Several school administrators made the journey from Elizabethtown, along with district Superintendent Dr. Robert Taylor, to witness the historical occasion. Eva Patterson Heath, the 24-year head coach at Red Springs that Evers credits in part for how she’s modeled her program, presented a game ball afterward.
“It’s a sigh of relief,” Evers said after the postgame ceremony, posing for pictures with family and friends, and having a minute to soak in the evening. “I never coached for a milestone. I coached because I love the sport. And I love the kids.”
Their love for her came through a few tears of joy in a back hallway outside a celebratory locker room.
In appeasing their coach and making sure the “going for 500 tour” was a limited one-time only engagement, the Lady Eagles played with poise when Red Springs pushed the envelope on physical play. East Bladen was far from a clinician’s joy, but the mixture of quintets Evers and assistants Alan West and Megan Kirby deployed always had the greater skill level.
Red Springs simply had too few weapons to compete.
Senior Ja’Tyra Moore-Peterson, the UNC Pembroke signee, had an early smile of satisfaction defensively and went on to ignite later behind the arc, draining seven 3-pointers in scoring a game-high 25 points. Lorna Mendell, the 6-foot-2 junior, scored twice inside in a slow-developing 9-2 opening five minutes.
Abbie Cross, a 5-foot-9 junior, came off the bench with a third-quarter scoring lift when the contest was still just 24-10. The Lady Eagles ran off with 32 of the final 42 points over the last 13-plus minutes.
“We knew what we were getting ourselves into. We kept our emotions under control,” Moore-Peterson said of the chippy play. “The 500 is a plus.”
East Bladen is 13-0 in the Three Rivers Conference, three games up in the loss column on West Bladen and St. Pauls with just five to go. The Lady Eagles are 18-1 overall, having won 10 straight since a loss to begin the Leon Brogdon Holiday Basketball Tournament at Wilmington Hoggard in December.
Moore-Peterson made four of her seven 3-pointers in a torrid fourth-quarter stretch. She scored 16 points after intermission.
Junior Patience Ward scored twice in transition in the fourth quarter and freshman Maya McDonald gave a defensive spark off the bench throughout. Senior Anna Kate White took a gutsy charge, senior Erica McKoy found holes to create plays and senior Ashley Hardin anchored the back of the defense and rebounded well. Sophomore Katie Evans was into the rotation early and often with solid perimeter play.
Red Springs fell to 6-7 in the conference and 7-11 overall.
Ward, in assessing how the game played out, gave a shake of her head.
“I don’t think any other team could have held their composure,” she said.
It was that tough, in particular one no-call of a textbook example of taunting.
“My kids fought through adversity,” Evers said. “But it’s a huge, huge night for our program.”
She paused and reflected for a second, adding, “I still remember the former players and the numbers they wore.”
No. 500 will be long-savored as well.
Patty Evers directs the Lady Eagles on Friday night during a 54-20 win at Red Springs. The triumph was the 500th in her coaching career.
Ja’Tyra Moore-Peterson pulls up in front of the 3-point line for one of her seven triples, part of a 25-point outing that helped East Bladen turn back Red Springs 54-20 on Friday night.