In basketball there’s an old saying that offense puts fans in the seats, but defense wins championships.

The Station Camp girl’s basketball team had both as the Lady Bison pressed their way to a 66-44 win over rival Hendersonville.

“Before the game tonight we talked about coming out with a lot of energy and effort and I think we did that, but a lot of credit for this win goes to our defensive pressure,” said Station Camp Coach Kendra Jackson. “Our girls came out ready to play from the outset, and for one of the first times this season, our defensive pressure led to a lot of good offensive situations that we were able to take advantage of.”

Hendersonville Coach Any Wilhite said this was probably the first time many of her players saw the kind of defensive pressure that the Lady Bison showed Tuesday night.

“We’ve got a lot of young girls who are playing at the high school level, and for them, this is probably the first time they’ve ever seen the kind of pressure we saw tonight,” said Wilhite. “We tried to simulate the press that Station Camp runs, but no matter how hard you try you just can’t simulate the kind of pressure that you’ll see in the game.

“I know the girls are taking this loss hard, but this one falls on me because I didn’t have them properly prepared. We’ll work on what we had problems with tonight, learn from it and get better from here on out.”

The Lady Bison defense wasn’t the only thing on display Tuesday night, Station Camp also had its offense running on all cylinders led by Kia Perry’s 21 points, and Janasia Williams, who finished with 15 points in the win.

Hendersonville (6-13, 3-4 9-AAA) was led by sophomore Emily Hatfield, who finished the night with 16 points, and freshman Emma Svedin added another nine points in the losing effort.

“Coach Jackson has really been preaching about our shooting and our shot selection,” said Perry. “We’ve worked a lot in practice over the past few weeks and it paid off tonight because it seemed like everyone was shooting much better.”

Station Camp (9-7, 4-3) set the pace early and never looked back as the Lady Bison outscored the Lady Commandos 26-11 in the first quarter.

Station Camp hit five three-pointers in the opening period led by Perry, who had a pair of three-pointers and a field goal, and Williams added eight points of her own that included a three-pointer of her own.

The frantic pace didn’t continue in the second quarter as both teams struggled to score, but for the second period in a row, it was Station Camp that came out on top, outscoring Hendersonville 10-8 to take a commanding 36-19 lead into the halftime break.

The Lady Bison offense got back on track in the third quarter as Perry again led the way for Station Camp with seven points, and Williams added another five points to help the Lady Bison outscore the Lady Commandos 21-11 to increase their lead to 57-30 heading into the last quarter.

Hatfield and Ramia Lloyd combined for 10 fourth period points for Hendersonville, but it was too little too late as the Lady Bison went on to coast to the 66-44 victory.

“Station Camp deserves all the credit tonight because they played great defense, and shot the lights out,” said Wilhite. “They played a complete game, and had a total team effort from everyone on the floor, so tonight they were the better team.”

HENDERSONVILLE (44) – Emily Hatfield 16, Emma Svedin 9, Anna Miller 6, Ramia Lloyd 6, Taylor Wright 4, Courtney Glover 3.

STATION CAMP (66) – Kia Perry 21, Janasia Williams 15, Cheyenne North 9, Kayla Deeter 8, Savannah Keele 6, Chelsea Davis 5, Tori Tilman 2.

Three-pointers: HHS (3) – Miller 2, Glover 1. SC (8) – Perry 3, Williams 2, Deeter 2, Davis 1.

By Chris Lynn