The Mooresville Girls JV Basketball team opened up the season with a home game against the Southport Lady Cardinals. The two teams met at the start of last season with the Lady Pioneers winning the game 47-20 at Southport. With this being the first game of the season for the JV team, it would be fair to say that some rust was on the players in the first half of the game. The Lady Pioneers struggled to run their offense against Southport’s JV 3-2 halfcourt zone. Opportunities to score were there for the Lady Pioneers but the ball just never fell through the basket and turnovers seemed to be part of the offensive flow. The aggressive defense played by the Pioneers put Southport at the free throw line frequently in the first quarter where they were able to hit five free throws. In the second quarter, the baskets started to fall and the Lady Pioneers were able to set up into an aggressive pressing defense that kept causing frequent turnovers for Southport. The turnovers in the second quarter helped the Lady Pioneers score more easily than the first quarter and the game quickly turned in favor for Mooresville. For the first half, the Lady Pioneers held the Lady Cardinals to no made baskets. The halftime score showed Mooresville 26 and Southport 5. At the start of the second half, the Lady Pioneers used their momentum from the second quarter to build up their lead to nearly 30 points twice during the quarter. As the lead expanded the Lady Pioneers started to pull their foot off the gas a bit and get more players onto the court. In the last couple of minutes in the game, the Lady Pioneers went on a 12-2 run to push up the final score to 52-21. The 52-26 victory for the Lady Pioneers starts their season off 1-0 for the third year in a row. The Pioneers will now look ahead to prepare for the Lady Trojans of Bishop Chatard on Thursday night. The Lady Trojans are a 3A program that has had good success under Coach Wagner winning a Regional title three out of the past four seasons. All three teams will be in action, The Junior Varsity game will start at 6:00 p.m. in the South Gym while the Freshman game will start at 6:00 in the Pavilion. The Varsity game will start around 7:30 in the South Gym. Mooresville JV 9 17 13 13 52 Southport JV 5 0 9 7 21