By Ted Waddell
FALLSBURG — Thursday night’s non-league basketball game between The Family School Lady Falcons and the host Fallsburg Lady Comets was in a sense two different games divided by a halftime.
At the final buzzer, the Lady Comets posted a 56-35 victory.
In the first half, Fallsburg outscored the Lady Falcons in both quarters (12-5 and 19-5) to take a 31-10 lead into the locker room.
But in the second half, it was a whole different ball game.
The Family School (1-2) outscored Fallsburg in the third quarter, 8-7. In the fourth quarter, the Lady Comets edged the Lady Falcons, 18-17.
For Fallsburg (1-1), Sheryl Pinder scored 19 points, Jasmine James had 10 points, and Shaina Swerding recorded nine points.
Nadine Nixon paced The Family School with 19 points, while teammate Sarah Vevante had 10 points.
At the three-minute mark of the opening quarter, the Lady Comets were up 9-3. They did not relinquish the advantage for the rest of the game.
Near the end of the contest, a fight between a couple of young girls up in the bleachers disrupted the action on the court. But the disturbance was quickly quelled by uniformed officers from the Town of Fallsburg Police Department, who took the juvenile combatants over to the local police station.
Unfortunately, that flurry of fisticuffs carried over to the floor.
Near the end of the game, the tempers of players on both teams flared until the referees and coaches calmed things down.
“Our defense kind of broke down, and we didn’t hit the boards. We didn’t get the rebounds that we should have gotten,” Family School Coach Carlton Williams said.
He said that Nadine Nixon, Sarah Vevante and Denise Tagariello “had some good shots, but they didn’t fall.
“It just wasn’t our night, they capitalized on all our mistakes,” Williams added.
Coach Daniel Redmond is back for his second year of leading the Lady Comets.
“We’re still having too many turnovers, but my big scorers came to play and our rebounding was pretty good,” he said. “We had way too many fouls, but that’s something we’re going to work on in practice.”
Regarding the temper tantrums on the floor, Redmond said, “We had a little extracurricular activity after the game, and keeping our composure is something we’re going to have to work on.”