By LLOYD COMBS
for the Daily Telegraph
PILGRIM’S KNOB, Va. — Grundy generated more offense in a three-minute span of the second quarter than it and Twin Valley seemed to generate the rest of the game.
The Lady Wave held off the Lady Panthers, 39-32 in a defensive struggle Friday night.
Autumn Sperry and Cassie Keene each hit three 3-pointers, all in the first half, combining for three in a 13-0 run just before halftime.
That gave the Lady Wave a 28-19 lead at the break. And, it was all the margin Grundy (8-4) would need.
“We were worried about a little delay in our season schedule,” said Grundy coach Craig Plymal, whose club had not played since Dec. 28.
“We’d not played in a few days, but we put some gym time in and did a bunch of shooting and we did a bunch of running the floor and our conditioning paid off for us, too.”
Grundy didn’t need to run much Friday and didn’t want to, keeping the pace as slow as it could. The two teams combined for just six points in the third quarter and 24 in the second half overall.
“We didn’t need a lot of offense in the second half,” Plymal added. “We had a nine point lead and we kept the tempo and dictated it and did what we wanted to do.
“We lost a 10-point lead down here in the district tournament and we did not want that to happen again.”
Sperry finished with a game-high 13 points and Keene finished with 11, with just two points between them in the second half.
“We played great defense, one of our best defensive games,” Twin Valley coach Tommy Crigger said. “We lost them late in the second quarter and Sperry hit a couple of threes and they put the lead up there.
“In the second half we stopped them four or five times in a row and we had four or five shots at getting back in the game and we missed them all.”
The Lady Panthers got no closer than five points in the low-scoring third quarter and six points in the fourth. Grundy’s biggest lead was 39-29 in the final minutes.
Kim Lester scored 12 points and Lexy Vance added 10 for Twin Valley (6-4).
Hannah O’Quinn hauled in 14 rebounds and blocked 12 shots for the Lady Panthers. The 6-foot-3 senior just missed a triple-double, finishing with eight points.

Girls
GRUNDY (8-4)
Lane 7, Boyd 1, C. Keene 11, Caudill 4, Sperry 13, Coleman 3, Deel 0, Peck 0, Owens 0, S. Blankenship 0.
TWIN VALLEY (6-4)
Lester 12, Vance 10, L. Keene 0, O’Quinn 8, Cantrell 2, Matney 0, Dameron 0.
Grundy.........11 17 2 9 — 39
Twin Valley....12 7 4 9 — 32
3-point goals-G 6 (Sperry 3, C. Keene 3), TV 2 (Lester 2). JV Game-TV won, 25-20.