By BOB REDD
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, Va. — Lexi Kiser fired in 34 points and Casey Spencer added 13 to lead the Graham G-Girls to a 63-52 win over the Fort Chiswell Pioneers, Wednesday night at Graham Middle School.
“Considering we’ve played three games in the past two weeks, I thought we put good effort forth,” said Graham head coach Chris Southcott. “We still have some things to work on and that showed tonight. But overall I thought we looked all right.”
Fort Chiswell took the early 3-0 lead as Savannah Dunford connected on one of two free throws, then hit the game’s first field goal. Graham got on the board nearly three minutes into the game on a give-and-go between Kiser and Dejah Carter.
Down 5-2 midway through the opening stanza, the G-Girls went on a 9-0 as Carter and Kiser executed the give-and-go and Spencer dropped in a three, a field goal and two free throws to make it 11-5 Graham after one quarter.
The Pioneers stormed back and tied the game on Dunford’s steal and layup. But Kiser’s three put Graham back on top. The teams exchanged the lead the final minutes of the half and Graham carried a 22-19 advantage into the break.
Fort Chiswell retook the lead to open the third quarter and once again the teams played back-and-forth with the lead and heading into the final eight minutes the G-Girls held a slim 33-32 lead.
Taylor Jones’ bucket 30 seconds into the final frame put Fort Chiswell back ahead 34-33, but that would be the Pioneers’ last lead of the night. Kiser answered with a three to put Graham back ahead and Carter’s three-point-lay with 6:30 remaining pushed the G-Girls’ lead to five. Graham continued to increase its lead with grew as high as 11 points in the final two minutes of the game.
Kiser drained three treys en route to her 34 points and Spencer hit one from behind the arc. Carter finished with nine and unofficially had five blocked shots.
“Lexi is taking good looks, that’s the stuff we’ve been working no with her,” Southcott said. “And in the past two weeks Casey has been shooting the ball better and better. That’s something we’ve been doing in practice, getting a lot of shots up.”
Jones led Fort Chiswell with 19 points while Dunford added 16.
Fort Chiswell head coach Kristen Williams said, “I felt like we played pretty good and used our speed. We just didn’t get the shots to fall when we needed them to down the stretch. Then, when we got into a position where we had to foul them, they knocked down their free throws when they needed to.”
Graham, with a string of make-up games next week, visits Grayson County, Friday.
“We’ve got six games in the next 10 days,” Southcott said. “Right now, in points we’re sitting behind Grayson (County) in second place in the conference, a little ahead of Richlands, and we have Grayson twice in the next 10 days. That will let us know where we stand.”
Graham won the JV game 37-22. Britney Tignor led the G-Girls with 13 points and Carly Moretto added 11.

FORT CHISWELL (12-7)
Carlie Musick 0 2-2 2, Savannah Dunford 6 1-2 16, Sadie Smith 3 1-1 7, Taylor Jones 9 1-2 19, Megan Woods 0 0-0 0, Caroline Booher 0 0-0 0, Sarah Burnett 0 0-0 0, Gracie Robinson 0 2-2 2, Emily Hight 1 0-0 2, Alexandrea Rakes 2 0-0 5, Totals 21 7-9 53.
GRAHAM (10-6)
Lexi Kiser 9 13-18 34, Taylor Webb 0 0-0 0, Miranda Hagerman 0 0-0 0, Caitlin Vance 0 0-0 0, Casey Spencer 4 4-5 13, McKenzie Riffe 0 0-0 0, Christina Mounzer 3 0-2 6, Karrah Large 0 0-0 0, Dejah Carter 4 1-1 9, Totals 20 15-26 62.
Fort Chiswell................5 14 13 21 — 53
Graham........................11 11 11 29 — 62
3-point goals: FC 4 (Dunford 3, Rakes); G 4 (Kiser 3, Spencer). Fouled out: FC - Musick.