By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
TAZEWELL, Va. — Winning a double-overtime game on Thursday night took something out of the tank for the girls basketball team from Richlands High.
On Friday, the Lady Blues still had enough gas to beat their rivals, the Tazewell Lady Bulldogs, 60-32 on the Tazewell Middle School court.
Tazewell (3-16) served up 19 turnovers in the game and the visitors turned them into plenty of points.
Richlands (11-10) head coach Dennis Palmer said, “We’ve worked on our man-to-man defense. ... We’re putting pressure on the ball, and denying hard.”
“Tonight’s could have been a trap game for us, since we played so hard (Thursday) night in double-overtime against (Bluefield), a real good team. (Senior night at Richlands) was an emotional game. ... It’s hard to turn around and play your rival the next night.”
Senior Montana Hearl, who led Richlands with 22 points, said, “I could definitely tell that myself and my teammates are really tired. But with Tazewell being a rivalry, we always try to come out strong, no matter what — even if we play a tough game the day before.”
Tazewell head coach Jason Southworth said, “Turnovers have really been our Achilles’ (heel). We just need to keep working on fundamentals.”
The Lady Dogs pulled within two points, 7-5, on Ally Lee’s first triple of the evening, and she hit another early in the second quarter to cut Richlands’ lead to 17-14, but the Lady Blues outscored their hosts 13 to 2 in the remainder of the first half.
Palmer said, “Tazewell came in, ready to play in the first quarter. I thought we were a little flat and not focused, coming in, but the second quarter we picked it up and kind of opened up the lead a little bit.”
“We take the ball to the hole. We’re slashers and drivers — and we’ve got some girls who can spot up and shoot.”
Hearl said, “We started off the season a little bit down. We lost some key players, but I think here recently, we’ve been really working for our main goals, just keep on going and going.
“My teammates have definitely stepped up, along with me and Amber (Street) as seniors.”
Southworth said, “We’re really just trying to get some good ball movement, moving the ball (and) trying to play a little defense. At times, we did a decent job at it.”
Tazewell managed 10 field goals in the game. Lee had five of them, contributing 20 points overall.
Richlands got 18 points from Olivia Harmon, and 10 from Erica Burton.
Palmer said, “This is a big week for us. We had two good wins this week. ... I think we’re in third (in the conference), just a little bit behind Graham right now, so we’re trying to position ourselves for the conference tournament.”
Hearl said that the coaches told the girls at halftime that they could play better.
“We listened and we just poured it on for them,” she said. “I think, overall, we just pushed hard for it.”
Richlands has a rematch with Bluefield on Tuesday. Palmer said, “We’ve got to go back and play them again, so it’s going to be another tough game there next week.”
After that come a matchup with Twin Valley.
“Twin Valley’s got a real good team,” he said. “Both of those are going to be real, real tough games for us.”
Tazewell hosts Graham on Tuesday and plays at Marion on Wednesday. Southworth said there will “possibly” be a third game later in the week at Tazewell against Marion.

At Tazewell Middle School
RICHLANDS (11-10)
Montana Hearl 10 1-1 22, Erica Burton 3 4-6 10, Seania Overton 2 1-6 5, Amber Street 1 0-1 2, Olivia Harmon 6 4-6 18, Haley Whited 1 1-2 3. Totals 23 11-22 60.
TAZEWELL (3-16)
Sarah Ray 2 0-0 4, Gracey Cline 2 0-0 6, Ally Lee 5 8-14 20, Cydney Moore 1 0-2 2. Totals 10 8-16 32.
Richlands..................15 15 17 13 — 60
Tazewell......................11 5 9 7 — 32
3-point goals — Richl 3 (Hearl 1, Harmon 2); Taz 4 (Cline 2, Lee 2). Total fouls — Richl 14, Taz 20. Fouled out — Richl, Street; Taz, Cline.