Rough SIRR Start for Local Girls Squads

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Pinckneyville Community High School's Girls Basketball team may have suffered its first loss of 2008-2009 Tuesday night-but it learned a valuable lesson in the process.

The Lady Panthers, 4-1, played wire-to-wire with highly regarded Nashville-despite slipping behind 18-3 as the game began- before falling 44-38.

Tuesday's battle signalled the opening of River-to-River Conference play for each Mississippi Division school. Nashville is 5-1. Thursday, Pinckneyville visits Benton.

"We just got off to way too poor of a start," PCHS coach Alan Engelhardt said. "We took awhile to find a rhythm and you can't do that against such a good, good team."

Nashville led 27-12 by halfime and then held off a strong second half by the Lady Panthers, who had 12 points from Becky Vanderjack.

Taylor Cicardi and Emily Miller each netted nine points with Mandi Kellerman adding six.

"The closest we ever could get was five points," Engelhardt said. "We played extremely hard and gave ourselves a chance to win at the end of the game. The one thing I hope we can take from the game is the fact that we can play with anyone. I don't think they really believed that coming in."

CHESTER 47, Du QUOIN 41

The Lady Indians (1-5) suffered their fifth consecutive setback since handling Chester to start the Tip-Off Classic a few weeks back.

Trailing 26-13 by halftime, Du Quoin couldn't recover as Chester withstood a furious final quarter comeback.

Freshman Jessica Hirsch scored 13 points and Shaylyn Little added 10 more for the Lady Indians, who also had eight points from senior Cashmiere Bledsoe.

Jade Jolly (13) was the top scorer from Chester (2-3, 1-0).

Du Quoin (3-0) won the junior varsity game and visits Harrisburg Thursday.